Recently threatened with demolition, this magnificent Art Deco mansion in Miami has just been thrown a lifeline, but this isn't just any estate – it was mafia kingpin Al Capone's long-time residence and the place where he eventually passed away. Part safe house, part showpiece, click or scroll on to take a tour of this historic home and uncover its dark past, plus the reason why it was spared the wrecking ball...

Al Capone, boss of the Chicago Outfit, otherwise known as the South Side Gang, made most of his money bootlegging booze. Based in the Windy City, Capone had a habit of leaving town to avoid both his enemies and the cops, and at the height of his power in 1928, he bought a spectacular villa on Palm Island, in Miami's South Beach.

Capone paid $40,000 (£30k) for the 30,000-square-foot estate, around $589,000 (£432k) in today's money. Sheltered by palm trees and stunning tropical gardens, it's a quiet oasis away from the hustle and bustle of the mainland. The Spanish colonial-style mansion is accessed via a gatehouse at the entry gates that Capone installed himself – no doubt to keep an eye out for unwanted visitors.

Home to a dazzling swimming pool, Capone paid as much attention to privacy as he did to the property's luxury amenities. The security-conscious kingpin reportedly spent $200,000 (£163k) on added extras, which is about $2.9 million (£2.3m) when adjusted for inflation. These included the installation of a seven-foot-high wall complete with searchlights, as well as a cabana and grotto – sounds like a pretty luxurious backyard!

Now decked out with stylish wood floors and white, minimalist décor, it's hard to imagine what these walls may have witnessed. The gangster was at his Miami retreat when the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre occurred on 14 February 1929, which took out five members of arch-rival Bugs Moran's gang and two affiliate members. A few months later in May of the same year, Capone was imprisoned for nine months in Philadelphia for carrying a concealed weapon, then jailed again for seven years in 1931 over tax evasion charges.

The former mafia hideout, which dates back to 1922, still retains many of its original Art Deco features, including a swish powder room and tiled fireplaces. It was here that Capone retreated to when he was released from Alcatraz in 1939. Seriously ill with late-stage syphilis, he spent the last years of his life with his devoted wife Mae at the Miami mansion, where he died in 1947. Mae Capone eventually sold the property in 1952. 

Fully renovated in 2015, the interior combines modern finishes, like this sleek Shaker kitchen, with carefully preserved period fixtures including sash windows and original covings. But the future of this historic home looked uncertain in August this year, when it was snapped up for almost $11 million (£8m) by developers who intended to raze the house and build a modern home in its place. 

Ideal for indoor-outdoor living, the covered terrace that leads off from the main reception rooms offers an alfresco dining spot and an outside lounge framed by Art Deco archways. It's hard to imagine why anyone would want to bulldoze this tropical retreat – the developer's proposed plans were for an eight-bedroom, nine-bathroom mansion encompassing a sprawling 10,200 square feet. However, their vision never came to fruition...

The mansion's current floor plan offers seven bedrooms and five bathrooms spread over 7,500 square feet of living space, and it looks as though that's how it'll stay. A campaign to save the property was launched by Miami Beach locals and at the end of September, mere weeks after the home's sale, the developers had a change of heart and withdrew their planning application, before quickly selling the property on for $15.5 million (£11.4m), according to the New York Post. 

Campaigners claimed the site's redevelopment would not just be a loss for local history but for American history too, while adding little to the community. One thing's for sure, this property, with all its colourful history, will certainly make a unique family home. As well as the stylish living areas, there's no shortage of space for entertaining – this covered loggia overlooking the water has some of the best views in the house.

Along with Capone's mansion, the lot itself offers just less than 0.7 acres of sought-after land on one of Miami's most desirable island enclaves. If the vast swimming pool and deck weren't enough, the residence also benefits from 100 feet of pristine water frontage – ideal for making a hasty getaway, though hopefully the new buyers don't have as infamous a past as the home's previous resident...

Read on to take a tour of more incredible mafioso mansions

Built from seriously ill-gotten gains, the infamous estates of history's most prolific mafia kingpins are seriously extravagant and dripping with opulence. From Carmine Agnello's Long Island estate to Vincent Palermo's Houston hideaway, click or scroll on and let's take a tour around 10 of the most fascinating mobster homes and hideouts.

Lester Ben ‘Benny’ Binion is perhaps the most notorious mobster that Texas has ever seen. The gambling icon created a criminal empire and spent some four decades running casinos across Las Vegas. The Texas-born gangster began his career in Dallas, managing illegal lotteries before expanding to the gambling capital of the world. When he wasn't presiding over his kingdom, the kingpin liked to lie low at Fincastle, a remote estate in Athens, Texas.

Located around 90 minutes' drive from Dallas, the ultra-private estate spans 1,369 acres. It features three cabin-style homes, dense woodlands and plenty of lakes – the perfect hidden home for a criminal to carry out a crooked career undetected. The estate was actually owned by Binion's business partner, Dallas mobster Ivy Miller, who used the retreat to host a secret gambling society, according to Mansion Global.

The story goes that Miller allegedly arranged for a rival, who was encroaching on Binion’s territory, to be killed. This move set off a 20-year turf war, which led to plenty of grizzly deaths and kidnappings. Despite the dark tales, there are no traces of the property's sinister past inside. The rustic dwelling spans several-thousand square feet and features light-filled and cosy living areas, complete with impressive vaulted ceilings, exposed brickwork and swathes of wood panelling. If only walls could talk...

Wherever Binion went, law enforcement wasn't far behind. In 1931, he pleaded guilty to murder by self-defense and was given a suspended sentence. Binion's crimes finally caught up with him in 1953 though, when he was found guilty of tax evasion – just like Al Capone. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but he was soon out and back to his old ways...

It's likely Binion returned to Fincastle after his release. The perfect bolthole for hiding out and running illegal activities, the secluded estate boasts several boat docks – ideal for making a quick getaway. Binion remained part of the casino world and even helped to establish the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas during the 1970s. The gangster died on Christmas Day 1989 and his former gambling den was sold off in 2020 for a whopping $12 million (£8.6m).

Pete Corrado, who was dubbed “Machine Gun Pete”, was one of the first members of the Detroit Outfit or Detroit Partnership, the Midwestern city's most active Mafia organisation. He headed the Corrado clan offshoot from 1931 until his death from a heart attack in 1957. The mafioso lived in a 7,481-square-foot mansion on Middlesex Road in Grosse Pointe Park, just outside Detroit.

Corrado made his money organising and operating an illegal numbers racket or so-called “Italian lottery”. He also had interests in real estate and lucrative cuts in a number of profitable businesses. His Georgian-Colonial mansion was paid for with the proceeds of these activities.

Decorated in a classic 1950s style, the mafioso mansion has a decorative tiled entrance hall adorned with a pretty fountain. Aside from the numerous reception rooms and bedrooms, other highlights of the substantial suburban property include three bars, a wine cellar, spa and pool room, as well as a bomb-proof garage.

Given that this was a mob home, the property has several hidden spaces that were presumably used to hide Corrado's machine guns and other weapons. Adding to the Mafia allure, a series of tunnels run under the house, one of which connects to a mansion across the road that was once owned by Detroit Outfit boss Anthony Zerilli.

Following Corrado's death in 1957, the house stayed in the family and became the home of fellow gang member Anthony "The Bull" Corrado until 1988. It was eventually purchased by former Detroit Tigers baseball star Kirk Gibson in 1997 for $665,000 (£542k). He sold the property via auction in 2015 for $715,000 (£582k).

Rather than a decadent mansion, Gangster George “Bugs” Moran preferred to live in a luxury hotel. Though his parents were French immigrants, the mobster, who was born Adelard Cunin, headed the mostly Irish-American North Side Gang, which battled against Al Capone's Italian-American South Side Gang for control of Chicago's illegal alcohol trade.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Moran resided at Chicago's opulent Parkway Hotel. The Art Deco building was conveniently located less than a block away from the North Side garage, where the gang stored the bulk of its illicit booze. The garage was later the scene of the infamous Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929.

Moran wasn't the only North Side Gang member who lived at the hotel. Optician-turned-criminal Reinhart Schwimmer also resided there. While Moran narrowly avoided being gunned down in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, Schwimmer, on the other hand, wasn't quite so lucky and was among the seven victims.

Following the massacre, Moran lost much of his power and influence in Chicago, and the ending of Prohibition in 1933 coupled with the Great Depression pretty much finished him off. The mobster continued to reside at the Parkway before leaving Chicago in the mid-1930s. He was locked up in 1939 and spent much of his remaining life in prison, where he died in 1957.

The luxurious hotel, which once housed a grand ballroom, high-end restaurant and of course the requisite speakeasy, has since been converted into the Pierre, a luxury condo development. Fortunately, the conversion was carried out sensitively, and the building still retains its Art Deco splendour.

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel had a fearsome reputation and was one of the founders of Murder, Inc., which acted as the enforcement arm of the Jewish mob and Italian-American Mafia during the 1930s and 1940s. Like Bugs Moran, Siegel was a bootlegger during the Prohibition era. He then got into gambling, moving to California in the late 1930s where he built a large mansion.

Located in the exclusive LA neighbourhood of Holmby Hills, Siegel's city bolthole was constructed in 1938 with the proceeds of his many crimes. Sitting on a total of 1.8 acres, the house has five bedrooms, an enormous living room, oak-panelled library, imposing dining room, and a spacious home cinema.

Siegel resided at the property with his wife and children. No expense was spared and the house was decked out with every mod con and luxury imaginable. The principal lounge room had eighteen-foot-long carved divan sofas and an ornate bar stocked with the most exquisite champagnes, cognacs and whiskeys.

A rarity at a time when even the most extravagant homes had only one or two bathrooms at most, the house wowed with six vanity rooms. The dining room was outfitted with a vast wood table that seated a whopping 30 – significantly bigger than the polished wooden table shown here. 

The grounds are equally lavish, featuring a pool and manicured gardens. The wardrobe in the master bedroom reportedly contained a secret trapdoor to the attic, which Siegel escaped through in 1940 to evade the cops, who saw through the ruse and arrested him for murder. Siegel was acquitted for the crime, but met his end in 1947 when he was shot dead at his girlfriend's home in Beverly Hills. 

The "Lord High Executioner” of the terrifying Murder, Inc. and the boss of what would become the Gambino crime family, Albert Anastasia was as ruthless as they come. The psychopathic Mafia leader is thought to have masterminded the murders of hundreds of people, making him one of the most notorious criminals in history. Anastasia lived in this Spanish-style New Jersey property from 1947 until his death in 1957.

The menacing Mafia Don controlled his organisation's criminal activities from the mansion and is alleged to have tortured and killed people in the house. The Fort Lee home, which is located across the Hudson River from Manhattan, has a total of 25 sprawling rooms and sits on 1.3 acres.

The house is surrounded by high walls that were once covered in barbed wire and guarded by two vicious Dobermanns. Along with several reception rooms, the mansion has a number of capacious bedrooms, a retro kitchen and a glass-covered conservatory offering views of the New York skyline.

Looking at this picture of the property's wood-panelled office, it's not hard to imagine the scary Mafia boss sitting behind the desk with a cigar in his hand, planning his next kill or directing his minions to execute it on his behalf. But the office is by no means the eeriest room in the house, not by a long shot. That would be the jacuzzi room...

Known in Anastasia's time as “the slaughter room”, it contained nothing apart from a drain, into which the blood of his unfortunate victims would flow. Anastasia's reign of terror continued until 1957 when he was gunned down while having a shave in the barber shop at Manhattan's Park Sheraton Hotel. His mansion was offloaded and passed through various owners, before selling in 2017 for $6.9 million (£5.6m).

The brains behind the Chicago Outfit for a good 40 years, Paul “The Waiter” Ricca was Al Capone's de facto successor and operated in the Windy City from the 1930s to the early 1970s. He lived with his family in this fine five-bedroom house in the Chicago suburb of River Forest from 1938 to 1957.

Ricca served as underboss to Frank "The Enforcer” Nitti, but in reality, he called the shots. Nitti, who suffered from extreme claustrophobia, took his own life in 1943 after he was reportedly pressured by Ricca and others to plead guilty to extortion charges to get them off the hook. Ricca then took over as leader of the Chicago Outfit and appointed Tony Accardo as underboss.

Like his suburban mansion, Paul Ricca commanded a veneer of responsibility, but nonetheless, he was just as cruel and ruthless as the other Mafia bosses. If he wanted to get rid of someone, he would purportedly whisper “make-a him go away” to one of his enforcers and consider the job done.

After a day's work enforcing his iron rule, Ricca would return to his well-appointed home with its four fireplaces, parquet floors, a handsome library and other splendid rooms. Like other Mafia mansions, the property had plenty of places to hide incriminating items, including a wardrobe that was said to contain a secret door that leads to a concealed space.

Ricca was arrested in 1957 and subsequently charged with tax evasion. He was imprisoned in 1959 but only served 27 months of his nine-year sentence. When Ricca died of a heart attack in 1972, his former mansion passed to a professor at the University of Illinois who sold it in 2014 for $900,000 (£733k) through Berg Properties.

Tony Accardo, AKA “Big Tuna”, allegedly took over from Paul Ricca in 1972 as the boss of the Chicago Outfit, having worked his way up from a small-time crook on Chicago's South Side. Like his predecessor, Accardo ended up purchasing a magnificent mansion in the Chicago suburb of River Forest.

Accardo lived in the Colonial-style five-bedroom house on Ashland Avenue from 1964 when he was the underboss of the Chicago Outfit, through to 1972 when he was the Don of the organisation. It was built in 1963 at a cost of up to $160,000 (£130k), which is around $1.3 million (£1m) in today's money.

Fitted out with stunning parquet flooring, intricate plasterwork and high-end brick fireplaces, the house has all the trappings of a Mafia leader's residence. Aside from several regal reception rooms and bedrooms, the property has a library, cedar-lined spa, large three-car garage and swimming pool.

The mansion hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons in 1978 after it was burgled. Accardo was on holiday in California at the time. Not long after, the three alleged thieves and four associates were found strangled with their throats cut. Accardo was suspected to have ordered the murders and the allegation was seemingly confirmed in 2002 by mobster-turned-informant Nicholas Calabrese.

Following the burglary, Accardo sold the property and decamped to a condo in the same neighbourhood, before moving into his daughter and son-in-law's home in Barrington Hills, Illinois. He died of respiratory and heart failure in 1992. As for the River Forest house, it was recently sold for just over $1.1 million (£895k).

Vito Rizzuto, “Montreal's Teflon Don”, was the alleged boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada and head of the widely feared Rizzuto crime family – the subject of Netflix's Bad Blood series. While Rizzuto is reputed to have been involved with the Mafia since the 1960s, he managed to evade jail until 2004. Prior to this, Rizzuto lived with his family in a plush Canadian mansion in Montreal's Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough.

The Tudor-style five-bedroom house is situated on the affluent neighbourhood's leafy Antoine Berthelet Avenue, which is nicknamed “Mafia Row” by locals. At least four alleged mafiosos have owned homes on the thoroughfare, including Rizzuto's brother-in-law, Paolo Renda.

Needless to say, like all good Mafia-connected homes, the sizeable estate has plenty of high-end touches, including numerous luxury chandeliers, quality parquet flooring, sumptuous Persian carpets, antique furniture, and a sweeping staircase in the entrance hall.

Other selling points include a palatial family room, ensuite bathrooms for each of the home's five bedrooms, two powder rooms and a state-of-the-art kitchen in tip-top condition with solid mahogany cabinets. The Rizzuto family obviously insisted on the best when it came to kitting out their home.

Rizzuto was released from jail in 2012 and a power struggle for control of the crime family's operations ensued, resulting in several high-profile murders. The big boss passed away in 2013 from complications related to lung cancer and the house sold that same year.

Part of New York's Gambino crime family, Carmine "The Bull" Agnello married the Don's daughter Victoria Gotti in 1984. The couple moved into a five-bedroom mansion in the Long Island village of Westbury, New York in 1989, where they lived with their three sons, Carmine Jr., John and Frank.

Agnello's criminal activities eventually caught up with him, and he was sentenced in 2001 to nine years in prison for racketeering and arson. While he was in jail, his wife Victoria divorced him on grounds of constructive abandonment and was awarded the house. Together with her sons, Victoria went on to star in reality shows Growing up Gotti and Growing Up Gotti: Ten Years Later.

The mansion featured prominently in the shows and Gotti has gone on to become a best-selling author, columnist and reality star. She has described the home as “very warm, very woodsy, very comfortable yet very elegant”. As you can see, this opulent living room is covered in fine wood panelling and lined with bookshelves.

The bedrooms are just as luxurious, featuring ornate pillars and four-poster beds. Despite this, Gotti has made several attempts to sell the property. In 2008, it was listed for a pricey $3.5 million (£2.8m). The following year, the house was threatened with foreclosure when Gotti fell into arrears with her mortgage repayments. Since then it has been listed and taken off the market seven times.

It seems nobody is willing to pay Gotti's ambitious asking price. The mansion was in the news again in 2016 when it was raided by the FBI in relation to a tax fraud investigation, but no charges were brought. However, Victoria and Carmine's son, Carmine Jr., was recently busted in 2018 for operating an illegal scrap metal yard.

Mobster-turned-FBI-informant Vincent Palermo, AKA Vinny Ocean, was the de facto boss of New Jersey's DeCavalcante crime family, inspiring the character of Tony Soprano in the award-winning HBO series. After turning in his associates, Palermo was placed in the Witness Protection Program and snapped up a gated mansion in Houston under the pseudonym Vincent Cabella in 2003.

A veritable palace, the five-bedroom cabana property on Memorial Drive is fantastically ritzy. Surrounded by lush gardens, which boast a fancy fountain and pool, the mansion impresses with a plethora of luxurious features, from marble flooring and columns to elaborate plasterwork.

Talk about furnishings fit for a billionaire, Palermo didn't hold back when it came to decorating his Houston hideaway. The main open-plan reception room boasts crystal chandeliers, expensive antique and reproduction furniture, Murano glass mirrors, plush carpets and a fabulous grand piano. 

The ostentatious vibe carries through into the bedrooms. The master suite is graced with a solid mahogany four-poster bed, ornate chandelier and marble fireplace. The majestic home even features a lavish home cinema – perfect for watching all those Sopranos' reruns.

Palermo's cover was blown in 2009 when the New York Daily News ran an exposé of his new life in Houston. Several weeks later, he put the mansion up for sale with an asking price of $4 million (£3.3m). It failed to sell, so he took it off the market. The property was listed again in 2015 and purchased the following year for $2.9 million (£2.4m). We wonder if the new owners have an inkling of its shady past...

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