Just over 90 years ago, it was the mansion fit for a mobster but the current owners call it "a piece of crap."
The former Miami Beach mansion that belonged to late notorious gangster Al Capone is slated for demolition, according to reports.
The Florida mansion that would make the perfect backdrop for any gangster film and even make fictional Miami mobster Tony Montana envious in “Scarface” will be no more after new owners purchased it for $10.75 million this summer, according to Fox 8.
The home was owned by Capone for two decades and it is where he died of a heart attack in 1947.
The nine-bedroom home will be demolished after one of the new owners says it is sitting three feet below sea level and has flood damage, according to NBC Miami.
The mansion was bought this summer by Todd Glaser and Nelson Gonzalez.
Glaser spoke to The Miami Herald and called the mansion “a piece of crap,” adding, “it’s a disgrace to Miami Beach.”
The new owners plan to build a two-story modern spec home with 8 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a Jacuzzi, spa and sauna, according to Fox 8.
Capone, who was nicknamed “Scarface,” bought the house for $40,000 in 1928, according to Miami Local 10.
The home is believed to be where the gangster and his associates plotted Chicago’s St. Valentine’s Day massacre in which seven members of an opposing mafia family were shot to death in a parking garage in 1929, according to Local 10.
Capone has been in the news recently as his granddaughters are auctioning off some of his memorabilia, including some of his personal belongings, which they say have never left the family’s possession after his death in 1947.
“My sisters and I are getting older. We didn't want these things to be left,” Diane Capone explained in an interview provided to Inside Edition Digital by the auction house. “And people who wouldn't know what they were, what the story behind each of them is. We didn't want to leave them for someone else to have to deal with.”
No matter how you look at Capone’s legacy as a “businessman,” the items on offer could give you a glimpse of the man beyond the legend.
“When you handle his possessions, you get a sense of who a person is,” Brian Witherell, from Witherell’s Auction House, says.
“And you see his artifacts, you see his pictures, you see him holding his grandchildren, you see the letters to his son, and you see regardless of how he made his living and what his profession was, you see the human side of him.”
In October, Witherell’s Auction House will present “A Century of Notoriety: The Estate of Al Capone” in Sacramento.
If the price is right, Diane says you could snag some of his everyday items that were embellished to his liking, like his favorite firearm.
“Papa many, many times had to be prepared to protect himself. That was his number one gun for protection, as far as he was concerned, and I know he referred to that as his sweetheart. She was watching out for him.”
