With its blast-proof doors, huge underground bunker and fortress-like security, it sounds more like a Bond villain’s lair than a family home.
And, in fact, the $397 million compound Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is building on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is only 16km from the home of former 007 Pierce Brosnan.
However, while the star of GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies can sometimes be seen cycling nonchalantly around the laidback surfer town of Hanalei Bay, there is nothing subtle about Silicon Valley billionaire Zuckerberg’s efforts to turn 566ha of unspoilt coast into a home where he, his wife Priscilla and their family can sit out the apocalypse.
In doing so, critics say he has ridden roughshod over ancient Indigenous property rights and indulged a paranoid passion for privacy that looks deeply hypocritical from the man who’s made his fortune from monetising other people’s private information.
Zuckerberg’s venture is one of the most ambitious private construction projects in North American history and will see the building not only of two mansions but an entire village of outhouses.
In choosing the spectacularly beautiful north coast of Kauai — the oldest, least developed and most westerly of Hawaii’s main islands — he has chosen what many regard as a paradise within a paradise.
Nicknamed the “Garden Isle” because it is covered by tropical rainforest, Kauai’s highlight is the jaw-dropping Na Pali Coast in the north, where towering cliffs plunge into an azure sea.
It’s no surprise that the coast has been used in dozens of films, including South Pacific, Jurassic Park and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Indeed, the island’s central role in the Oscar-winning 2011 George Clooney drama The Descendants, about a Hawaiian family at loggerheads over whether to sell a swath of pristine Kauaian land for luxury development, has uncanny echoes with the Zuckerbergs’ deeply unpopular arrival.
Ordinary islanders who complain about no longer being able to afford even a modest home on Kauai are unhappy about Zuckerberg’s plans — revealed after public-records applications by technology magazine Wired.
The sprawling compound, which is already under construction and which the Zuckerbergs call Koolau Ranch, has more than a dozen buildings — including several guesthouses — which have a total of more than 30 bedrooms and bathrooms.
At the centre are two mansions with a total floor area at 5109sqm, similar to that of an American football field. The two houses boast lifts, offices, conference rooms and “industrial-sized” kitchens.
Another building will feature a full-size gym, pools, sauna, hot tub, “cold plunge” pool and tennis court.
A nearby wooded area will house a web of 11 disc-shaped treehouses, connected by intricate “rope bridges”.
But above ground is only the start. According to plans lodged with the Hawaiian planning authorities, an underground tunnel will run between the two mansions and branch off into a 464sqm underground bunker.
This includes living and sleeping space, a mechanical equipment room and an “escape hatch” that can be accessed via a ladder.
The shelter’s main door will be built from metal and filled in with concrete — a common anti-blast design that is used in military-grade bunkers and bomb shelters.
The level of security around the compound is set to be unparalleled, including an extensive network of centrally controlled surveillance cameras and many interior doors operated by keypad.
Some, such as those in the planned library, will be “blind doors”, built to look like the surrounding walls. Zuckerberg has a fascination for such optical trickery, having previously installed an entrance to his home in California’s Silicon Valley that was disguised as a hedge.
But there’s no point shutting yourself away from the world if you cannot support yourself. So, according to Wired, Koolau Ranch will be entirely self-sufficient, with its own 5.5m-high, 17m-wide water tank and enormously powerful “pump system”. The ranch is already producing much of its own food through agriculture and livestock.
Zuckerberg’s spokesperson refused to comment on the project’s size — or its similarities to a disaster-survival bunker.
She did, however, point out that local people complaining about the intrusion and disruption could have had it a lot worse because the previous owners had wanted to build 80 luxury homes on the land.
Other than its sheer opulence, another aspect of the project that has dismayed islanders is the intense secrecy in which it is being carried out. One of Zuckerberg’s first acts was to erect a mile-long, 1.8m-high wall made from volcanic rock around much of the property.
Local people say it has destroyed their idyllic views of the coast, while down on the beach below — which Zuckerberg hasn’t been able to buy — visitors have to put up with being watched from “guard huts” dotted along the edge of the tycoon’s land.
Some say the stunning beach now feels like a prison camp, with bathers afraid to change into their swimwear, for fear of who might be watching from above.
Meanwhile, nearly everyone who enters the site — including builders, carpenters and painters — has to sign a strictly worded non-disclosure agreement forbidding them from sharing what is going on inside the compound. Workers assigned to different projects are reportedly not even allowed to discuss what they’re doing with their fellow contractors.
The intense security has already cost one life — last year, a security guard assigned to patrol a nearby beach whenever Zuckerberg was visiting the property died of a heart attack while climbing a steep path at the end of his 12-hour shift. The dead man’s family claimed the secrecy was so stifling that it took them some time to establish how he had actually died.