Man who bought a nuclear bunker in Montana reveals how he converted it into a stunning underground home — and discovered 45,000 pounds of food in the basement in the process

A man has revealed how he bought a 1980s nuclear bunker for a ‘good price’ and converted it into a beautiful home in the mountains of Montana.

Dean Anderson stars in one YouTube video made by documentary maker Kirsten Dirksen in which he talks about his unique real estate project.

He explains that he fell in love with Paradise Valley, Montana, while fishing in the area five years ago, but all the real estate was too expensive.

However, after a thorough search, he came across a man selling a sleeping bunker for a reasonable price and picked him up.

Dean said the sale price included £45,000 worth of food stored in the basement and also included enough medicine and oxygen supplies “to last for a number of years.”

He said these bonus items helped close the deal.

The outdoorsman explained, “For me, it was basically a million or a million and a half dollars worth of cement stuck underground with all this old food and all this old stuff that made my mouth water.

“I thought, ‘Wow, all that leftover stuff is gone, they’re going to bury it so I can buy it for next to nothing and make something nice out of it.’

In the YouTube video, footage filmed by Dean shows how his house was slowly built over the years.

In an effort to turn the bunker into a livable space, he cut doors and windows into the reinforced concrete.

He also attached an exterior structure, which serves as the home’s entryway, with oversized windows that provide fantastic mountain views.

During his tour, Dean explains how he converted a room in the bunker into an open dining area and kitchen.

Because of the curved ceilings, he had to install horizontal freezing and cooling units.

Other features of the kitchen include a central island with a six-burner stove and three sinks, which he says makes washing dishes easier when large numbers are present.

As for the aesthetics of the design, Dean says, “We wanted to keep the place… a kind of bunker, a fallout shelter or a nuclear fallout shelter, so we went with a lot of aluminum… a lot of grays.”

In an effort to be as sustainable as possible and keep costs down, Dean made a lot of the furniture himself or reused items.

In one clip he demonstrates how he uses an old flamethrower he found in the bunker as a door stop.

Since there are no windows in the living space, Dean installed bright white lights “with a little blue tint” in the ceiling and added blue paint.

He says at one point: ‘[It’s] to try to get the feeling that you’re outside… It’s almost like the sky.”

Other living spaces he shows to viewers include a bedroom in a former medical centre, a shower room in an old storage space and an office in the new extension.

The underground shelter was built to house 250 people, but Dean shows in one video that conditions would have been quite cramped.

In one of the narrow bedroom spaces, he explains that the plan was to equip each of the slim compartments with multiple bunk beds, so that everyone would live on top of each other.

Heading down to the basement – which Dean says is about twenty feet deep – the homeowner reveals how it took a lot of effort to get rid of all the wheat and other food supplies stored in sealed barrels.

He made use of some of the goods he found, with plentiful supplies of olive oil, sesame oil, mung beans, margarine powder, and peanut butter powder.

There are two more floors to be built, but so far Dean has created two apartment spaces in his sprawling bunker.

In the video he explains how he did all the work with a team of young men in recovery.

He believes that physical labor can serve as therapy, as he managed to give up alcohol in the same way.

All men, who are often just off the streets or from prison, receive training and payment for working on the construction project.

Dean says of his rehabilitation concept: “We’ve had forty kids here. The majority of them are clean and healthy and doing well.’

It is estimated that there are more than 50 bunkers in Paradise Valley that were built in the 1980s in preparation for nuclear fallout.

According to Dean, all homeowners in the area were required to have a place in a shelter and “this was actually in the homeowners association (HOA) documents.”

Dean summarizes his unusual bunker conversion project and concludes, “It’s been a hell of a ride with this thing.”