Tucked away on a Greenwich street where houses are hidden by towering trees and fences, is a 15,000-square-foot residence enclosed by Gothic-style gates. The house itself, with a facade that does not stand out among its neighbors, hides something else entirely.
Twenty-something feet below the house, behind a "vanishing" room, is a 12,000-square-foot underground area complete with hidden doors, a nearly 140-year-old bar, a massive motorcycle collection and more.
It's a space Fairfield County-based builder Joe DeJesus conceptualized when he realized zoning restrictions wouldn't allow him to build up or out onto the property, so he built down, creating what's sometimes known as an "iceberg home" — or, in this case, a "bat cave."
“I came up with the idea to go underground. It actually worked out better, because it never would have been this big," DeJesus says.
Like icebergs hiding their magnitude below the surface, the term “iceberg home” has been used to describe houses that have elaborate lower levels explains Dominic Altamura, a real estate advisor based in Stamford.
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The real estate trend has attracted celebrities like professional football player Travis Kelce, who reportedly is installing a golf simulator, gym, lounge and more in his Kansas City lower-level man cave. While the term has been widely used in luxury housing markets in London and San Francisco, it's not that popular in Connecticut, says Cameron LaPoint, an assistant professor of finance at the Yale School of Management.
“There's a kind of open question about whether those types of houses are cropping up in Connecticut,” says LaPoint, whose research explores real estate and urban economics.
But DeJesus has had some experience with the concept; he's constructed golf simulators, basketball courts, squash courts and more in the lower levels of houses across Connecticut. Currently, he’s building a new waterfront house in Old Greenwich complete with an elevator that comes out of the driveway with storage for four sports cars in the lower level.
For the "bat cave," DeJesus, who has over 40 years of home building experience, "had a vision" for how to display the homeowner's 40-year collection of antiques and movie memorabilia. He even added to the collection with relics purchased from Facebook Marketplace and eBay to make the space "period correct" and create a design reflective of the homeowner's passions.
"I use the term 'when an enabler meets a facilitator.' (They) enabled me to facilitate (them)," DeJesus says. "I wanted kind of an experience like you're going to an amusement park."
The lower level is kept at a cool 54 degrees. A main centerpiece is a massive showroom housing 80 Harley Davidson motorcycles dating back to 1910. A stone grotto to watch sports and hang out is mean to prevent the showroom from feeling like a museum, DeJesus explains.
Blow-up photos hang on the walls illustrating rides the homeowner has done in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and throughout the United States in areas including Montana, Key West, Idaho and the Pacific Coast Highway.
"I said, we need to come up with a with a story," DeJesus says. "If we're doing photographs, they have to mean something."
A safe door leads to the “James Bond lounge.” It’s decked out in themed decor and Mahogany walls, complete with an electric fireplace and tin ceiling.
But the journey through the cave begins with a wine cellar and a different classic movie character. A“vanishing room” is guarded by a mannequin of Alfred Pennyworth, Batman’s butler.
“When you're in the wine cellar, you think it's just a little nook,” DeJesus says. “But that really is the entrance to the cave.”
With the flip of a switch or voice command — “Alfred, open the bat cave” — the room vanishes and reveals an almost 100-foot-long underground concrete tunnel dimly lit by light fixtures having coverings constructed with metal from United States Navy destroyer ships dating back to World War II; a curved ceiling is reminiscent of the subway system of New York City.
The tunnel ends at a 12,000-pound bank vault door from 1875 that open up to the “escape room." The room is enclosed by wooden walls showcasing seven paintings of Harley Davidson motorcycles and two motorcycle engines.
To get out of the “escape room,” there is a secret panel that brings visitors into the “Oak Bar,” complete with a fully operational phone booth from the 1920s, a tin ceiling, distressed Romanian wooden entry doors from the 1800s and a large wooden bar built in 1886. Hung on the walls is a painting of a scene from “The Shining,” one of homeowner's favorite movies.
Behind long red curtains is another tunnel that leads through newspaper clippings from World War II to reach the “21 Club,” a speakeasy and hidden private dining room that serves as a nod to the former 21 Club in Midtown Manhattan.
It has brick walls that date back to the late 1800s and 150-year-old wooden barn beams. Glossed under the bar table are silver dollars from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Inspired by "The Godfather," DeJesus recreated the toilet from the movie, which includes a wooden toilet tank that hides a fake replica gun. Additionally in the men's bathroom, DeJesus installed a 19th century urinal from McSorley's Old Ale House, which claims to be the oldest bar in New York City. The women's "glam" bathroom is inspired by the 1920s with marble from the 1940s.
The "bat cave" is over-the-top, but people might want to build down for more practical reasons too, like to create living spaces for family members, rental units or cooler alternate living space to cut down rising cost of utility bills, LaPoint says.
But, luxury is often the name of the game with iceberg homes.
“What luxury home buyers are looking for is something that's a little bit more unique ... something that their neighbors don't necessarily have,” LaPoint says.
Feb 12, 2025
Lilli Iannella
Hearst Fellow
Lilli Iannella is a Hearst Fellow in Connecticut. She is a recent graduate of Syracuse University and received a B.S. in magazine, news and digital journalism. Lilli previously held an editorial internship at Good Housekeeping and an investigative reporting fellowship at The Evening Sun.
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