Notorious gangster Al Capone’s Miami Beach home, where he planned the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, is set to be demolished after new owners bought it for $10.75M, according to the Miami Herald.
The South Florida home, where Capone lived for nearly 20 years, and where he died in 1947, was purchased by a pair of developers this summer.
But they have no plans to renovate it – and have vowed to raze the house to the ground despite plans to designate it a historic landmark.
One of the property’s new owners, Todd Glaser, told the Herald that the nine-bedroom home sits at three feet below sea level, which has led to extensive flood damage to the property.
‘We’re going to get this knocked down,’ he said of Capone’s home, which currently has three feet of standing water underneath it.
‘The house is a piece of crap,’ Glaser added. ‘It’s a disgrace to Miami Beach.’
The South Florida home (pictured in red) where Capone lived for nearly 20 years, and where he died in 1947, was purchased by a pair of developers this summer
Todd Glaser and Nelson Gonzalez purchased the mobster’s home for $10.75M. It has an extensive swimming pool, which is now set to be demolished
Glaser purchased the home with his business partner, Nelson Gonzalez, who is a senior vice president of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.
‘When it rains, the house turns into a lake,’ Gonzalez told DailyMail.com.
The developers have plans to build a two-story home on the property with eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a spa, sauna, and a Jacuzzi, the Herald reports.
However, the home was recently added to the Miami Beach September agenda for a potential historic designation, which could halt the developer’s plans of demolishing the house and reconstructing a new one.
But Glaser and Gonzalez remain undeterred, and have expressed disbelief in the thought of honoring Capone, a known murderer and felon, in such a way.
Infamous gangster Al Capone smokes a cigar on the train in August 1934 while en route to a penitentiary in Atlanta to begin an 11 year prison sentence
Capone is said to have planned the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre at the Miami Beach home
One of the property’s new owners, Todd Glaser, told the Herald that the nine-bedroom home sits at three feet below sea level, which has led to extensive flood damage to the property
Capone died of a heart attack in the home in 1947. Its new owners plan to demolish it despite calls for it to be designated a historic landmark
‘You know how many people are going to come to see Al Capone’s house? It’s going to be a tourist attraction for a known felon,’ Glaser said.
‘The preservationists are against demolishing the home, but the man was a murderer,’ Gonzalez added.
‘They tried to do the same thing with Capone’s home in Chicago,’ Gonzalez said, referring to attempts by Preservation Chicago to place the property as a historical Chicago landmarks.
Efforts to do so were denied by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks and the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council in 1989.
A nattily dressed Capone, who was the king of organized crime in Chicago during the late 1920s and early 1930s
The home was recently added to the Miami Beach September agenda for a potential historic designation, which could halt the developer’s plans of demolishing the house
Capone had purchased the property in 1928 for $40,000, which would equate to about $638,000 in 2021
The property boasts magnificent views of Miami Beach, however flooding and water damage is a regular occurrence at the home, which sits several feet below sea level
For his part, Glaser sees the pair’s plans for demolition as an act of civic duty.
‘They want to glorify this guy? I knocked down Jeffrey Epstein’s house. Palm Beach was begging me to knock his house down.’
‘I’m doing good for the community,’ Glaser said.
Over the years, the home has become an integral part of Capone’s mythology.
Capone is said to have planned the infamous Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre while residing in the Miami Beach home, which ultimately lead to the 1929 murder of seven members and associates of Chicago’s North Side Gang on Valentine’s Day.
The developers have plans to build a two-story home on the property with eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a spa, sauna, and a Jacuzzi, the Herald reports
‘The house is a piece of crap,’ Glaser said. ‘It’s a disgrace to Miami Beach’
He had purchased the property in 1928 for $40,000, which would equate to about $638,000 in 2021, before dying in the home of a heart attack in 1947.
Meanwhile, Capone’s three surviving granddaughters plan on auctioning off 174 personal items that belonged to the notorious Chicago gangster on October 8
The auction, hosted by Witherell’s Auction House in Sacramento, is titled ‘A Century of Notoriety: The Estate of Al Capone.’
Among the items up for auction are Capone’s diamond-encrusted jewelry with his initials, his favorite handgun, and family photographs.
Source link
