New York’s Panic-Room Builders Are Busier than Ever

Bill Rigdon Can Build You A Closet That Locks from the Inside and Has Electrified Door Handles. He Can Install a Device in Your Walls that will will play Pepper Spray to Temporary Blind Intruders and Stain Their Clothes for Easy Identification Should. He Can Fortify Your Walk-in Pantry With Ballistics-Grade Composite to With Nuclear Fallout. He will Also Remind you that you will need a place to pee while riding out the Times. “I ONCE HAD A FOX NEWS REPORTER WHO HAD A WHOE PLAN FOR A BUSEGE BUNGER WHERE 13, 14 PEOPLE COULD FOR A PERIOD OF TIME,” RIGDON, WHO ALSO CONSULTED IN DAVID FINCER’S 2002 MOVIE Panic Roomtells with. “But there was no Bathroom.” Rigdon Wold Neither Confirm Nor deny the client was Roger ailes.

Rigdon, A Jovial Angeleno Who Also Trades in Yachts, Armored Vehicles, and Art, Is One of the Longest-Running Figures in the Panic-Room Industry, Havinging Out 40 Years Ago Bunkers for Mormons in Nevada. But Rigdon’s Business, Like so many oters in this niche market, has been booming out in the last year or so, as new york’s wealthiest residents clamor to sayselves in a City they as increasingly doomed. “I Never Been Busier,” Rigdon Sayys.

David Vranicar, Who Ouns Fortified Ballistic Security in Florida, aggrees that there’s a bit of a bom in the city right now. “People are not Feeling Safe the way they used to,” he tells. “New York has Gotten Really Busy for US Lately.” Another Panic-Room Outfitter, Steve Humble of Creative Home Engineering, Saw His First Bump in Bump here around the anti-police-violence protests that erupted in the summer of 2020. “That wave have Kind but it was was wes replaced in the viocent in viocent in vioce CITIES LIKE NEW YORK. ” (Violent Crimes actually Fell in the City Last year, though assaults Remain High.) New Yorkers with the means to do it are “Locking down,” he Says, from reinforing a single front in their west village townhouses to tricking the secret in their upper side mansions.

The Safe Room Has Always Had a Certain Presence in New York. In adding to roaming celebrities and billionaires, there are fields government offices and embassies who require these james bond – style Features in their palatial homes. (Rigdon Says He Signs for All HIS CLIENTS But was able to disclose that they have included a “Famous Piano Pianer from England Who Wears Funny Glasses” and “A TV Host Who’s Very Famous Named Gayle,” and He Once Got a Call Epstein’s Jeffrey Epstein Brother.) The Henry Block Housea beaux-arts brownstone on east 76th street that was Once Owned by Grace Kelly, Has A Secret Cellar and Separate Safe Room. Another beaux-arts mansion at 854 fifth avenue has bulletproof Windows and “a metal-Padded safe room with a faraday to fend off electromagnetic Fields,” Acciting to The Robb Report, Because it was once home to the President of Yugoslavia. Gwyneth Paltrow Was Said to Have a Safe Room in Her West Village Greek Revival Townhouse, Although a Spokesman Later said she just “stored her cloths in it.” Now the market has expanded from the notoriously rich to the More beat the ranks of the merely ultrawealthy, fortune 500 CEOS and the likes who are non-famous but worried about roving home invaders, and kidnappers.

Photo: Creative Home Engineering

Photo: Creative Home Engineering

Vranicar Tells with recENTLY OUTFITTED AN APPLICATION IN 1 CENTRAL PARK WEST. The Condo in Question is on a High Floor and Has Been Reinforced With Steel and Ballistic Doors, with Facial-Recognition Technology that unlocks say with Just a Glanca. (The Owner Can Also Enroll Their Household Staff so that, at Least During Certain Hours, Their Faces Unlock the Dos Too.) Do Vranicar’s CLIENTS REALLY THAT AN AGRE COURDE OVERTAKE the 24-Hour doorman? “Absolutely,” he says. “I have to the sound paranoid, but i do not trust the bodyguards. I don’t Trust Security.

I Asked The Appraiser Jonathan Miller, Who Has His Eyes on Homebuyer and Rental Data Across All Five Boroughs, Whether Security Measures like Panic Rooms on the Rise. “We’ve seen it in gut renovations over the last three to four years,” Miller Said. “It ‘like adding a jacuzzi.” Still, he sees it as a fad, and one confined to the Very High End of Homeowners. The Idea That Townhouses are not as in Demand Because of Security Concerns in New York, As The New York Post Recently CLALIMED, Is “Totally False,” He Told Me, Saying that the Share of the Market Remains consistent at Around 2 Percent. One Luxury Agent, Maria Avellaneda at Compass, WHO SOLD A BULLETPROOF GLASS TOWNhouse on the upper Side in 2020, Said She Has, However, Observed More Townhouse Owners Fortifying Their Doors and Co-Ots Adding More Security Personnel.

Photo: Creative Home Engineering

All of which will will you. A luxury apartment Can take $ 1 million to Fortify. The materials are pricey – and expensive to transport. (A Single Fortified DOOR CAN WEIGH THOUSANDS OF PUNDS.) Rigdon’s Panic Rooms, Which Start at $ 50,000, Can Come With Bulletproof Night-Vision Gear, Food, and Medical Supplies. Often, clients Also Want Space in Their Safe Room to Storer Own Gun Collections. But this is the city, and the ultratraluxury market has a Certain cap on Square Footage compared to, Say, 100 Acres in Utah. Aesthetics and historical continuity matter more here, too. Humble Says New Yorkrs Like to Keep Their Safe Rooms Looking stylish and true to their homes’ architecture. His specialty is Total camoughage: a bookcase or brick wall that actually swivels into a hiding space; A High-Secity Door that pops out of the Wall of a primary-bedroom closet. He Can Fortify a Door with Bulletproof Steel and Cover it with the original plasticwork so that no one would know is there.

And if you can’t affford any of that? Rigdon recommends that Stock at LEAST 30 DYS ‘WORTH OF FREEZE-DRIED FOOD IN MY ONE-BEDROM ABOUT BROOKLYN, IN CASE CIVIL WAR BREAKS OUT. “Work with Government Agencies, The People Who Know, and They’re World,” he warned. It is good for the panic-rom business that the industry runs on a “Better safe than sorry” Philosophy-the best bunkers, ballistic doors, and bulletproof in the world, ideally, untested. “I Always Say, ‘It is Better to Have It and Not Need It Than to Need It and Not Have It,’” Vranicar Said.