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<\/p>\nWith its blast-proof doors, huge underground bunker and fortress-like security, it sounds more like a Bond villain’s lair than a family home.<\/p>\n
And, in fact, the \u00a3212 million compound Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is building on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is only ten miles from the home of former 007 Pierce Brosnan.<\/p>\n
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 1,400 acres of unspoilt coast into a home where he, his wife, Priscilla, and their family can sit out the apocalypse.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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Mark Zuckerberg, 39, and wife Priscilla Chan, 38 \u2014 whom he married in 2012 and with whom he has three children \u2014 got a ‘taste’ for Hawaii when they bought several multi-million dollar homes on the neighbouring island of Oahu in 2013<\/p>\n
In choosing the spectacularly beautiful north coast of Kauai \u2014 the oldest, least developed and most westerly of Hawaii’s main islands \u2014 he has chosen what many regard as a paradise within a paradise.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 swathe of pristine Kauaian land for luxury development, has uncanny echoes with the Zuckerbergs’ deeply unpopular arrival.<\/p>\n
Ordinary islanders who complain about no longer being able to afford even a modest home on Kauai are unhappy about Zuckerberg’s plans \u2014 revealed after public-records applications by technology magazine Wired.<\/p>\n
The sprawling compound, which is already under construction and which the Zuckerbergs call ‘Koolau Ranch’, includes more than a dozen buildings \u2014 including several guest houses \u2014 which have a total of more than 30 bedrooms and bathrooms.<\/p>\n
At the centre are two mansions whose total floor area, at 55,000 sq ft, is similar to that of an American football pitch. The two houses boast lifts, offices, conference rooms and ‘industrial-sized’ kitchens.<\/p>\n
Another building will feature a full-size gym, pools, sauna, hot tub, ‘cold plunge’ pool and tennis court.<\/p>\n
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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<\/p>\n
A nearby wooded area will house a web of 11 disc-shaped treehouses, connected by intricate ‘rope bridges’.<\/p>\n
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 5,000 sq ft underground bunker.<\/p>\n
This includes living and sleeping space, a mechanical equipment room and an ‘escape hatch’ that can be accessed via a ladder.<\/p>\n
The shelter’s main door will be built from metal and filled in with concrete \u2014 a common anti-blast design that is used in military-grade bunkers and bomb shelters.<\/p>\n
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 key-pad.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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Zuckerberg’ aims to turn 1,400 acres of unspoilt coast into a home where he, his wife, Priscilla, and their family can sit out the apocalypse<\/p>\n
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And while the Zuckerbergs insist their Hawaii compound is their family home, it’s actually only one of a reported ten residences they own<\/p>\n
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 18ft-high, 55ft-wide water tank and enormously powerful ‘pump system’. The ranch is already producing much of its own food through agriculture and livestock.<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg’s spokesperson refused to comment on the project’s size \u2014 or indeed its similarities to a disaster-survival bunker.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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, 6ft-high wall made from volcanic rock around much of the property.<\/p>\n
Local people say it has destroyed their idyllic views of the coast, while down on the beach below \u2014 which Zuckerberg hasn’t been able to buy \u2014 visitors have to put up with being watched from ‘guard huts’ dotted along the edge of the tycoon’s land.<\/p>\n
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The \u00a3212 million compound Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is building on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is only ten miles from the home of former 007 Pierce Brosnan<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, nearly everyone who enters the site \u2014 including builders, carpenters and painters \u2014 has to sign a strictly worded non-disclosure agreement (NDA) forbidding them from sharing what is going on inside the compound.<\/p>\n
Workers assigned to different projects are reportedly not even allowed to discuss what they’re doing with their fellow contractors.<\/p>\n
The intense security has tragically already cost one life \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
The dead man’s family claimed the secrecy was so stifling that it took them some time to establish how he’d actually died.<\/p>\n
The family is suing Zuckerberg, who gave them a cheque for just \u00a35,900 for what they claim was their loved one’s untimely death.<\/p>\n
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Zuckerberg has been accused of ‘colonising’ an island where the concept of private property didn’t exist until 1848 and which until 1973 had only one traffic light<\/p>\n
The billionaire is also being sued by the contractor who built the treehouses and claims to be owed \u00a3113,000 in unpaid funds. The Zuckerbergs insist they have paid in full.<\/p>\n
Although some local people are pleased by the employment opportunities that the ranch has brought to an island rife with unemployment, it appears that a greater number are riled by the heavy-handed intrusion of tech Big Money.<\/p>\n
After all, other wealthy celebrities \u2014including not only Brosnan, but actors Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller and Chuck Norris \u2014 all have homes there, too, and manage to be far more discreet about their presence.<\/p>\n
And while the Zuckerbergs insist their Hawaii compound is their family home, it’s actually only one of a reported ten residences they own, including a string of properties in California.<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg has been accused of ‘colonising’ an island where the concept of private property didn’t exist until 1848 and which until 1973 had only one traffic light.<\/p>\n
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The Zuckerbergs gushed how they ‘fell in love with the community and the cloudy green mountains’<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg, 39, and wife Priscilla Chan, 38 \u2014 whom he married in 2012 and with whom he has three children \u2014 got a ‘taste’ for Hawaii when they bought several multi-million dollar homes on the neighbouring island of Oahu in 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following year, they turned their attention to Kauai, paying \u00a378 million for what was then a 700-acre property on headland overlooking a popular beach. Controversially, the large estate was made up of more than a dozen small parcels of land that were partitioned in the 1850s and had been passed down through successive generations of islanders, sometimes divided so many times among descendants that some may not even know they have a claim.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Experts say islanders may not live on this ancestral, or ‘kuleana’ land but it’s important to them to know they can visit it.<\/p>\n
In 2017, the Zuckerbergs posted pictures of themselves on the estate and gushed how they ‘fell in love with the community and the cloudy green mountains’ and had decided to ‘plant roots and join the community ourselves’.<\/p>\n
But just two days later, they sued hundreds of Hawaiians who might own an interest in lots within the boundaries of the estate.<\/p>\n
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Zuckerbergs bought another 600 acres for \u00a341 million, by which time the community responded with an online petition demanding they stop ‘colonising’ Hawaii<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg \u2014 who said he needed to ‘enhance’ his privacy \u2014 insisted he was acting in good faith to ‘find all these partial owners so we can pay them their fair share’.<\/p>\n
But, as a local politician observed, Hawaiians traditionally sort out their problems by talking, and ‘you don’t initiate a conversation by filing a lawsuit’.<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg eventually dropped the lawsuits, but was accused in 2019 of covertly pressing ahead through a local resident suing on his behalf.<\/p>\n
In 2021, the Zuckerbergs bought another 600 acres for \u00a341 million, by which time the community they claimed to ‘love’ had already responded with an online petition demanding they stop ‘colonising’ Hawaii. (Undaunted by the criticism, the Zuckerbergs bought a final 110 acres for \u00a313 million later that year).<\/p>\n
Facebook was exposed in 2018 for supplying private data on millions of Facebook users to Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct British political data firm.<\/p>\n
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The billionaire is also being sued by the contractor who built the treehouses and claims to be owed \u00a3113,000 in unpaid funds<\/p>\n
The social media behemoth makes billions from advertising that exploits what its users reveal about themselves on the site.<\/p>\n
The irony of its boss being so ferocious about preserving his own privacy isn’t lost on Hawaiians, some of whom send drones over his property and then post the footage online \u2014 just as legal, they note, as his local land grab.<\/p>\n
In recent years, the famously uncharismatic Zuckerberg and his wife have gone on a charm offensive on Kauai, donating millions of dollars to local charities as well as an employment scheme and a Covid-19 assistance programme.<\/p>\n
However, their hiring of an important local politician as an ‘agricultural adviser’ on a six-figure salary, as well as giving more than \u00a33 million to a charity linked with the island government so it could buy a traditional Hawaiian fishpond, has prompted accusations that Zuckerberg is trying to buy political goodwill.<\/p>\n
Hawaii may be part of the U.S. but, as a chain of small islands surrounded by thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean, it’s very isolated \u2014 perfect for tech billionaires needing a getaway in the event of a world-collapsing mega-crisis.<\/p>\n
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has property on the island of Maui, Artificial Intelligence guru Sam Altman has a \u00a334 million home on the Big Island and Oracle software firm co-founder Larry Ellison owns 98 per cent of the small island of Lanai after forking out \u00a3235 million in 2012.<\/p>\n
‘This is the most magical place,’ said Pierce Brosnan of Kauai.<\/p>\n
‘Life here is very beautiful and very simple.’<\/p>\n
Sadly, nothing seems to stay that way for long when the obscenely rich kings of Silicon Valley come looking for a place to bunker down come the apocalypse.<\/p>\n