Recently we let you know that you could, if you wanted, purchase the Florida cottage where Ma Barker and her son Fred met their demise at the hands of the FBI. It’s a charming place, quaint and peaceful (bullet holes in the siding notwithstanding).
But perhaps your tastes are a little more lavish. Perhaps you’d be interested in a different piece of Florida real estate (because it is “only in Florida” isn’t it?), something more elegant and expansive in Miami’s exclusive Palm Island community, something like the Al Capone House.
Capone bought this Spanish-style house at 93 Palm Avenue for an estimated $40,000 in 1928 when he was just 29 years old. He spent some $100,000 on improvements, adding the 30-by-60-foot swimming pool and a two-story pool cabana, plus a two-story guest house/guard house. The Palm Island house was where Capone happened to be (with plenty of witnesses, natch) during the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929 and it was the first place he went after being released from Alcatraz in 1939. He lived the rest of his life in Florida and died there in 1947 at the age of 48.
Capone considered Florida a retreat, but that doesn’t mean things were quiet when he was around. The house, with its 100 feet of waterfront on Biscayne Bay, was the scene of wild parties fueled by bootleg liquor and punctuated by the occasional gunshot. Capone’s parties were such a nuisance they might have led to his conviction for tax evasion. According to one tale, President Herbert Hoover went to Florida for some R&R at the home of retailer James Cash “J.C.” Penney, a neighbor of Capone’s. The noise from Capone’s house so disturbed Hoover that he vowed to punish Capone by pointing the IRS in his direction. Or so it’s said . . .
Fact or fiction? That’s something you can contemplate while enjoying the view from the veranda as Capone used to. Interested? It can all be yours for $9.95 million.
Hat tip to Belle Isle Blog and My Al Capone Museum.