For sale: Former intercontinental nuclear missile silo. An ideal fixer-upper

Estate agent Jim Moore describes the property as having lots of potential uses. It could, he says, be turned into a home, a business headquarters or else be used for storage. At the height of the Cold War it was in the front line of the US’s efforts to avoid nuclear annihilation.

The 25 acre site at 8422 Clovis Highway, Roswell, New Mexico, once contained an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, first built by the US in 1959 and containing a payload 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped over Nagasaki in 1945.

At total of 72 Atlas missiles were built but reports say they were quickly decommissioned and updated with even more powerful weapons. As a result, across large swathes of America’s remote, rural hinterland are scattered the disused, abandoned silos once used to house the missiles.

“I’ve had a lot of calls, a lot of promises,” said Mr. Moore, 67, told the New York Times this week after listing the property for $295,000 (£194,000). “They’d love to have it, but it seems like they lack the money.”

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He said one of the callers had pondered growing marijuana, while another wanted to turn it into a storage depot. He said a number of the people who had called his real estate business in Roswell, a town forever associated with extraterrestrials, had sounded as if they were “doomsday types” looking to build a secure bunker.

The abandoned silo contains a large underground area, ten storeys down, and capable of withstanding a nuclear blast. A green door opens on to a stairwell that heads down to a now dilapidated quarters that long ago became a hang-out for teenagers.

Mr Moore insisted, however, that much had withstood the test of time. “You don’t see one crack anywhere,” he said.

Since it was deactivated in 1965 the site has passed through various owners. Most recently it was owned by a man who died last year – “your “typical Einstein”, a brilliant but eccentric designer. He lived for many years in a mobile home on top of the silo and never completed his plans, said Mr Moore.

A number of other silos have been converted into homes. Developer Larry Hall transformed one silo in Kansas into luxury “survival flats” with a pool and spa, cinema, shooting range, rock-climbing wall, dog park and five different power sources. Last year, one abandoned silo in Kansas was offered for sale on eBay.

In 2013, a home that had been carefully constructed inside a silo in Lewis, New York, was put on the market for $750,000.

Mr Moore did not respond to queries on Thursday. But a woman who answered the phone at his property business suggested anyone wishing to snap it up might be disappointed. She said: “I think that has been sold.”