Do any Dopers know someone with a panic room? Does anyone work for a company or organization with a panic room on the premises? I wonder if it’s the province of the ultra-rich, or is just Hollywood hype (as in the Jodie Foster movie of the same name).
I have read that they were a minor fad during the 1990’s. I have never known anyone with a panic room though. They are very expensive and most people don’t have a good place foor one.
When we built or house three years ago, we created a “safe room” in the basement. Poured concrete walls and a steel door with three deadbolts. Has a sleeper sofa and recliner. Also TV, phone and communications gear. More for tornado protection than anything more serious. We’re located in mid eastern Missouri, so tornados are not uncommon.
My uncle in Arkansas has the same thing, but he’s the only person I know that has that. His wife is paranoid about tornados so they built it into their new house.
Yes, they exist. Often in more expensive homes they are labeled otherwise on the plans submitted for construction; storage, wine cellar, craft room. After initial construction phase is over, and they’ve moved in, they’ll bring in a different crew to finish those rooms. Like us rubes working on the house can’t figure it out…
Rich paranoids always make life just a little more interesting.
Our house was built in the 19th century [ very much modernized and updated] but when we were tearing down a wall we thought was a wall to expand our kitchen we discovered a very tiny door 2-ft X 5-ft rectangle: it led down a small set of stairs and into a little room. No one knew it was there, the realtor was mystified when we called her. We found that it was an underground root cellar. It had some jars and lot’s of cobwebs. I salvaged some cool glass bottles, but otherwise it was cut off for whatever reason. We ended up filling it in, and moving on with the renovation. I doubt it was a panic room, but finding a room that we previusly thought didn’t exist was pretty cool. 
My panic room doubles as a tornado shelter as well. Being the midwest and in a very safe community, I am trully more worried about tornadoes than bad guys.
That being said, it is stocked with food and water, some other items for defense as well as communications gear not accessible through the rest of the house.
If a tornado hits, I am pretty well screwed, but I wont go out without a fight I guess… 
“Honey, quick, into the safe room and lock the door. The neighbors are bringing another hotdish!”
We also have a designed “safe room” we built it in for any emergency when we completely remodeled our home. It’s off an old root cellar, concreted and I-beamed. We use it mostly to store a few weeks worth of grub, but it has communication equipment both hand charged and solar operated lighting, well water hand pumped in.
Now why did we build it considering we are not “rich” or even upper middle class. We had extra material, a root cellar already and boredom. And after a few disasters left people fending for themselves for a bit, seemed like a cheap way for a little peace of mind.
Far from a Panic Room of Hollywood though.
I hate casseroles
I remember reading a Wall Street Journal article, back when I was in high school I think, about the fallout shelters (much the same) that were required in Switzerland for quite some time. “For every Swiss a shelter” was the motto.
They get converted to rec rooms and such quite a bit.
Ah, here we go. Cite for the curious.
If I had space for an extra room, I would use it for something more fun like a home theatre, rather than a panic room.
I’ve worked in some of the most expensive houses in my area and have never seen anyone devote a room for such purposes.
There were a number of homes which were modified in the Prohibition period to hid rooms where alcohol was made. One of my friends in Salt Lake (yes, in Salt Lake) lived in a house which was built during the period and had a number of false walls for storage as well as a secret room.
Some friends of ours have one, and the house is not that expensive. I know that they bought it for less than a million, although no telling what the housing bubble did to it. But I wouldn’t have known it was one if they hadn’t told me (they didn’t build the house). They used it mostly as a closet, and he keeps his Playboy magazine collection in there. It is not very large, and is much more likely to see use during a storm or hurricane – we Floridians don’t have basements.
Of COURSE you didn’t see it- it’s a secret!
Where the heck do you live that less than a million isn’t that expensive? I’ve assuming here that by less than a million, you’re not talking about a mere $300,000 house.
Even more excitingly, you’ll occasionally encounter a house from the 1800s with one or more secret rooms for use by the Underground Railroad. One of the old churches in Cleveland even has a tunnel leading to the river, for boarding boats to Canada.
Pretty much any large coastal city.
That’s because the guys who built it are under the driveway slab, pal. Dead men tell no tales.