Al Capone's Multimillion Palm Island Mansion Back on Market

The notorious gangster's 300,000-square-foot Palm Island property sold for $7.4 million just last year

A legendary gangster’s lavish pied-a-terre is back on the market.

The mansion at 93 Palm Avenue once owned by none other than Al Capone has been listed for nearly $8.5 million by One Sotheby's Realty International.

Capone bought the baby blue mansion for about $40,000 in 1928, when he was 29. The notorious Mob boss had amassed a fortune from bootlegging and other illicit activities, and he was eager to woo Miami Beach's elite.

"He had steak and spaghetti parties at his house and he invited greater Miami's officialdom there. Some pretty prominent people came, but obviously he already had this notorious pedigree to him. But he never had booze, because it was Prohibition so he wanted to be John Q. Citizen," said historian Dr. Paul George with History Miami.

George visited the 300,000-square-foot Palm Island property before it was restored in 2011.

"It has this great cabana in the back and when I saw it was in ramshackle condition. It was a very large cabana. And then this above-ground swimming pool in a huge lot that goes right back to the bay," George said.

The mansion sold for a little over $7.4 million last year. Broker Jorge Alonso, who was handling the listing at the time, gave NBC 6 a tour in September 2012.

"It's seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, two powder rooms, one of the powder rooms is an original powder room," Alonso, with Douglas Elliman Real Estate, said then.

It was while living at the mansion that Capone smiled for a mug shot. The Miami Police Department arrested him and charged with perjury. The case was later thrown out.

"He loved Miami's weather, had apparently been down here overseeing some illicit alcohol coming into his organization," George said.

Nearly 85 years ago, Capone is said to have plotted the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago from his home. He made sure he was seen in Miami on that day.

"He was seen at the racetrack, he was downtown at the county courthouse. There's photographs of him walking in and out. He wanted to make sure everybody knew he was here while his men, as far as we know, rubbed out a rival gang in Chicago," George said.

Capone returned to the Sunshine State a persona non grata after doing time in Alcatraz for tax evasion. His days in the sprawling mansion were bleak.

"He had syphilis and he had lost his mind essentially. So he just sat at and about his house," George said.

Capone took his final breaths on Palm Island, from heart failure after suffering a stroke at 48. His notorious legacy and home live on.

"I'm just amazed, someone didn't buy it with a lot of money and knock it down, and built whatever he or she wanted,” George said. “So that in itself makes it a freak thing, that it's incredibly historical and that it’s still standing.”

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