A famed Las Vegas mansion constructed for the finish of the world has perhaps discovered its most becoming new proprietor — a ghost hunter.
“Ghost Adventures” star Zak Bagans paid $4.55 million for the legendary Las Vegas Underground House, a weird Cold War-era bunker mansion buried 26 toes below an otherwise ordinary-looking property — just minutes from the Strip, according to Neon and KTNV.
The 48-year-old paranormal investigator plans to protect the property and ultimately open it to the public as as a museum, turning one of Sin City’s strangest personal properties into a full-blown attraction.
The weird Cold War-era mansion is buried 26 toes below Las Vegas. Instagram/@realzakbagans
The underground property was constructed as a luxurious fantasy for nuclear survival. FOX 5 Vegas
The bunker contains a pool, placing inexperienced, theater, bar, saunas and scorching tubs. Instagram/@realzakbagans
But the underground mansion’s story was wild long before Bagans confirmed up.
Hidden beneath 3970 Spencer St. close to Flamingo Road in Las Vegas’ east valley, the subterranean property was accomplished in 1978 for Avon govt, philanthropist and Dawson School founder Girard “Jerry” Henderson and his spouse, Mary, according to UNLV Special Collections.
The property spans more than an acre and contains 5 bedrooms and six loos across the above-ground home, underground residence and casita, according to its Zillow itemizing.
But the actual showpiece is below: a 14,620-square-foot subterranean property with an indoor swimming pool, placing inexperienced, theater, dance flooring, bar, saunas, scorching tubs, hand-painted murals sculpted faux trees and a programmable fake sky designed to mimic the rhythm of day and night time.
It was not some concrete panic room with canned beans stacked in the nook.
It was a full-blown luxurious fantasy for nuclear survival — a place where the wealthy could journey out Armageddon with cocktails, climate control and wall-to-wall Seventies Las Vegas aptitude.
Henderson, who made a fortune through business pursuits including Avon, had long been fascinated by security, privateness and underground residing, UNLV’s archive says.
His doomsday dream took form with the help of Texas builder Jay Swayze, an atomic-age evangelist who believed the floor of the earth could one day become uninhabitable.
Hand-painted murals were designed to make the bunker really feel above ground. FOX 5 Vegas
The home’s fake sky was constructed to mimic the rhythm of day and night time. Instagram/@realzakbagans
Sculpted trees conceal support columns all through the subterranean mansion. Instagram/@realzakbagans
Swayze and his brother Kenneth had constructed an underground home in Plainview, Texas, before forming World Underground Homes Corporation, according to UNLV. Jay Swayze developed what he called a “ship-in-a-bottle” building after being commissioned by Plainview officers to construct a demonstration fallout shelter in 1961.
Henderson contacted the brothers in 1963 and commissioned his first underground home outside Boulder, Colorado. That same 12 months, he purchased a 51% stake in the Swayze’s company and financed an Underground World Home exhibit at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
The honest exhibit helped promote underground residing as futuristic, protected and comfy, not just paranoid. Swayze even imagined underground colleges and purchasing malls, according to UNLV.
The underground home is half fallout shelter, half Vegas social gathering pad. FOX 5 Vegas
The bunker was accomplished in 1978 for businessman Girard “Jerry” Henderson.
Henderson lived in the underground mansion full-time until his death in 1983.
The Las Vegas mansion was the Hendersons’ greater, stranger sequel.
After transferring to Las Vegas in 1968, the couple commissioned the Spencer Street underground home in 1971. Planning started in 1973, and the dwelling was completed in 1978.
The couple lived in the bunker full-time until Jerry Henderson’s death in 1983. Mary Henderson later constructed a smaller typical home above the underground mansion in 1985, where she lived until her death in the late Nineteen Eighties.
From the road, the property gives little trace of what lies beneath.
The home turned a frozen-in-time relic of Cold War concern and Vegas extra. FOX 5 Vegas
The mansion spent years looking for the proper purchaser before its $4.55 million sale. Instagram/@realzakbagans
But downstairs, the bunker was designed to trick the mind into forgetting it was buried under the desert.
Murals wrapped the partitions with scenes of New Zealand, the Hollywood Hills, upstate New York, Switzerland and Colorado, according to the Underground House’s own web site. Sculpted trees conceal the support columns. The lighting system could simulate completely different instances of the day. The home also had its own generator and water provide, the web site says.
The outcome was half fallout shelter, half Vegas social gathering pad and half frozen-in-time Cold War dreamscape.
The home’s unusual appeal made it a magnet for curiosity seekers, filmmakers and web gawkers.
YouTube celebrity MrBeast featured it in a viral clip, Imagine Dragons filmed the music video for “Monday” there, and the property has hosted personal occasions, photoshoots and tours.
From the road, the property gives little trace of the elaborate world below.
Zak Bagans closed on the famed underground home for $4.55 million this week. Instagram/@realzakbagans
It also spent years looking for the proper purchaser.
The property bought in 2014 for $1.15 million to the Society for the Preservation of Near Extinct Species, which later turned tied to the Stasis Foundation, a nonprofit related with life-extension analysis, according to Business Insider.
The basis listed the mansion for $18 million in 2019, but the price was ultimately slashed to $5.9 million. It returned to the market in 2025 for $8.5 million before closing this week for $4.55 million, according to the Neon and property itemizing information.
Bagans, who operates Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum in downtown Las Vegas, informed Neon he was drawn to the home’s Cold War and atomic-age historical past.
He also hinted the mansion may have a darker facet.
“During the initial walkthrough is when I became absolutely shocked at the stories of hauntings I was told,” Bagans informed the outlet, including that there are “some very heavy-duty mysteries associated with the place and the previous owners.”
Bagans said he plans to use the web site for an unique documentary characteristic and ultimately let the public inside.
“Through the museum, I’m going to give the public a rare chance to step inside a place most people have never experience,” Bagans informed KTNV.
The timing is nearly too good for Las Vegas — a metropolis that has always identified how to flip disaster into spectacle.
The Nevada Test Site, now identified as the Nevada National Security Site, was established northwest of Las Vegas in 1950 and hosted 100 atmospheric nuclear assessments before above-ground testing ended in 1962, according to the Nevada National Security Site.
The web site later hosted 828 underground nuclear assessments before full-scale testing ended in 1992, according to the US Department of Energy.
In that atomic-age world, mushroom clouds were half of the desert mythology, and survival fantasies bought nearly as simply as show tickets.
The Underground House sits at the intersection of all of it: Cold War concern, Vegas extra. midcentury futurism, rich-guy eccentricity and, now, paranormal showmanship.
What started as one millionaire’s bunker against catastrophe could soon become a museum for the plenty.
In other phrases, the apocalypse finally has a box workplace.
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