11/29/2025
Heโs going to have a lot of new friend requests on his social media ๐๐
Dad of 7 Unveils 300-Acre "Doomsday" Compound Built to Save 200 People
BOUNTIFUL, Utah โ In the rainy hills above Bountiful, Utah, multimillionaire entrepreneur Jayson Orvis recently opened the gates to his 300-acre, self-sustaining sanctuary designed to house 200 people in the event of a civilization-ending catastrophe.
On a muddy afternoon late last month, Orvis led a small group of journalists on the first-ever public tour of the sprawling property. The compound, which has been in development for over a decade, serves as both a family home and a fortified refuge. The tour revealed a massive infrastructure that includes a fully stocked armory, a machine shop, greenhouses, and a butchery.
According to PEOPLE, the property is designed to support not just Orvis, his wife, and their seven children, but a community of 200 friends and experts. The group includes doctors, master gardeners, and former special forces operators who would gather here if society were to collapse. The tour showcased a "food forest" teeming with wild deer, elk, and pesticide-free produce, which Orvis claims could sustain the community indefinitely.
Unlike many modern survivalist retreats, Orvisโs homestead features no underground bunkers. He explained to reporters that burying oneself in the ground is a "weird prepper idea from the Cold War." Instead, the facility relies on defensible terrain and a stockpile of supplies, including medical textbooks and leather-working tools, to rebuild rather than just hide.
"We have more asparagus and raspberries than we can pick," Orvis said, handing a visitor a handful of chokecherries near his lumber mill.
"Weโll be super well defended and weโll also do the best we can to share and to help our neighbors along," he added.
Orvis emphasized that his approach creates a community rather than a lonely outpost. He noted that in true survival scenarios, lone wolves rarely make it. "It isnโt the people with the belt-fed m,achine g,uns who survive," he said, attributing the insight to his writing partner, a former Green Beret.
His daughter, Alex, 31, who also lives on the property, shared her perspective on her fatherโs grand vision. "He makes everything seem like a good idea," she said. "Itโs also pretty standard in our family for things to get carried away and become big things."
The 56-year-old author and businessman has been preparing for the "end of times" since his childhood in Anaheim, California. His father was a firefighter and metal fabricator who instilled the values of self-reliance early on. Orvis sold his previous business in 2010 and shifted his focus to philanthropic work with veterans, which eventually led to the creation of this homestead.
The property also serves as the filming location for Homestead: The Series, a show based on the Black Autumn book series Orvis co-authored under the pen name Jason Ross. The fictional stories explore a post-apocalyptic world similar to the one Orvis is preparing for, blurring the lines between his art and his reality.
Despite the heavy investment in d,oomsday prep, Orvis remains optimistic about the future. He estimates the chances of a total societal collapse in his lifetime are "sub-2 or 1%."
"I donโt regret any of this in the slightest," Orvis said, looking out over his vineyards and trout pond. "Learning how to ranch and grow things, doing all this together with our kids, itโs been fantastic."