“I’m going through the process of restoring the interior of it to as close to what it was during the day it was operating,” Michael, who purchased the silo in 1996 for $160,000 and lives at the property only part of the year, said in a television interview.

Set on an 8-acre (3.2-hectare) property in Lewis, New York, the silo was part of a network of 12 silos in the region that was completed in early 1960s but abandoned shortly thereafter when the Atlas F missiles they housed were made obsolete by a new generation of missiles.

The silo stretches down 18 stories into the earth – some 300 feet (91 meters) in total – and includes one bath, a modest kitchen and a bedroom that Michael fashioned out of the control center from which a nuclear missile could be launched at the Soviet Union.

The original launch console stands next to his bed, and the room is protected by two 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) metal blast doors capable of withstanding a nuclear blast.

Realtor Brian Dominic said that he expects to get about 1,000 emails and 100 phone calls that will eventually lead to “a handful of people that will actually visit the property,” the Boston-area television station NECN reported.

There is also a $375 “viewing fee” to weed out people whose interest in the property is not serious, NECN reported.