My wife and I are thinking along the small but efficient lines for our retirement home. At today's prices, each square foot of floor space can easily exceed $100, so reducing the size of a house can save a lot of money. A small house will also save for heating and cooling expense, especially if it's designed properly (passive solar heating in the winter with proper shading in the summer). We've decided that we only want two bedrooms (and one will double as an office), no dining room, no separate living and family rooms (combine them), and built-ins whereever possible. If you have a lot of space, you'll have a lot of wasted space. If you want to see efficiency in living design, go look at campers and motor homes. There is no wasted space in all but the biggest ones.

As for that bomb shelter, it wouldn't have done him much good. The Broadmoor neighborhood is very close to one of the biggest targets in America - Cheyenne Mountain (NORAD headquarters). The old Soviet Union had a special single-warhead version of their SS-18 "Satan" ICBM designed for targets like Cheyenne Mountain. It's warhead yield was about 25 megatons.