Some people dream of buying a swanky apartment in the city. Others dream of building a quiet cabin in the mountains. But Igor Polenov hopes someone out there wants to settle someplace a little different: a doomsday bunker in the middle of Lake Champlain.
“I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff,” said Polenov, who’s the Realtor for the roughly 3,200-square-foot structure built into a hillside in Alburgh, less than 10 miles south of the Canadian border. “But I haven’t seen a bunker yet. It’s my first.”
From the outside, the bunker seems to match its description online — “a post-apocalyptic hobbit house.” The structure’s outside wall faces southeast and has several openings for doors and windows. All around, it is lined by dense plant growth.
The bunker’s walls are 10 inches thick and built with concrete formulated to withstand additional pressure, according to the listing online. Its roof is built using prestressed concrete and has been insulated with multiple layers of protective sheathing.
Inside, the structure is split into four sections, though none are finished, and the floors are still dirt. There’s a hookup for a septic system that includes a leach field and tank, as well as a separate gray water dry well. Electricity is available on site.
The bunker is listed for $389,000 and sits on about 13 acres of land. Its address is 5280 Route 2, though the structure itself is several hundred yards uphill from the road.
‘Special property’
Polenov, who works for the South Burlington-based agency Chenette Real Estate, said the structure was built in the 1990s but abandoned and never finished after the builder’s wife died unexpectedly.
“A lot of it is hearsay,” he said of the building’s history.
One of Polenov’s friends bought the property and this year decided to put it on the market, hoping someone might have an interest in remote living — or doomsday preparation — sparked by the pandemic, Polenov said.
Most of the land around the property is untamed. There are woods, swampland and a small pond in the back. It occupies one of the highest points on the Lake Champlain islands, Polenov said, and the top of the structure affords a sweeping view of the water and the Green Mountains in the distance.
Asked if the list price was fair, Polenov said the property is unique, so it’s difficult to compare with almost anything else. It is not uncommon for properties in Alburgh to sit around on the market, he said, much less one built for such a niche interest.
“Special property takes awhile to sell,” he said. “It needs a special buyer.”
A tough housing market
Still, Polenov said he’s been encouraged by the spike in people moving to Vermont from out of state during the pandemic. Home sales to new Vermonters jumped 38% last year from the year before, VTDigger has reported.
The real estate market in Grand Isle County is competitive, he said, though property sells more quickly farther south on the islands — and therefore closer to the schools and amenities in Chittenden County.
Kathy Sweeten, CEO of the Vermont Association of Realtors, said the overall housing market in Grand Isle County reflects trends she has seen statewide.
The number of active listings for apartments, condominiums, townhouses and single-family homes in Grand Isle County decreased by about 90% between May 2020 and May 2021, according to the most recent data published by the association.
There was almost three years’ worth of housing inventory available on the islands in May 2020 — that is, enough properties for sale that it could take three years to sell them. There was just a single month’s worth of inventory available in May of this year.
The median sales price for residential properties increased about 125% during the past year, after decreasing year-over-year in both 2020 and 2019, the data shows. In May 2020, the median sale price on the islands was about $199,000. This May, it was about $445,000.
Sweeten said one of the biggest challenges facing buyers and sellers is that properties often get multiple offers above the asking price, which can lead to more intense bidding.
“There’s not a lot on the market,” she said. “And it moves very quickly.”
Across the state in the Upper Valley, another fortified bunker was recently put on the market — though it is much larger and has been fully renovated.
The Valley News reported Tuesday that a 100-acre compound in Plainfield, New Hampshire — which includes the 7,500-square-foot turreted home where tax evaders Ed and Elaine Brown held a standoff with U.S. Marshals in 2007 — was on sale for about $1.6 million.
The real estate agent listing the home said there was significant interest in the property, the Valley News reported, attributed in part to an uptick in regional home sales.
