Notorious Mobsters at Home: 13 Photos of Domestic Mob Life (2024)

The styles embodied by the ladies of organized crime has catapulted the “mob wife aesthetic” into the TikTok micro-trend adherent’s obsession du jour (think loud luxury: animal prints, bold colors, and a general embrace of maximalism), but while such trends cycle in and out of glory, our broader cultural fascination with the lives and crimes infamous mafiosos seems here to stay. American film legend Martin Scorsese has mined the gangster world to universal acclaim, shaping the genre with films like Goodfellas and Gangs of New York, and fans still flock to the New Jersey manse of fictional mafioso Tony Soprano, 25 years after the seminal HBO series first premiered. Newer entries, like Sofía Vergara’s Griselda, prove that interest in the anti-heroes of mob and cartel boss culture endures by claiming the top spot of Netflix’s most popular programming for three straight weeks. While the real kingpins these works draw their inspiration from spent plenty of time and energy evading police custody, they seem to have welcomed being captured at least in these photographs, which offer a bit of insight into their lifestyles away from the mean streets. Read on for a look at notorious mobsters enjoying some time at home (both enforced-stay and otherwise).

Al Capone

Al “Scarface” Capone is most commonly associated with Prohibition-era Chicago, where he rose to prominence running bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling operations, but the mob boss traded in the harsh Illinois winters for a Miami Beach manse in 1928. According to PBS, the infamous gangster told his new Sunshine State neighbors that he was a secondhand furniture dealer. Locals were not fooled by his assertion (as he was, by then, quite well known for his organized crime ring) and feared he would give the area a bad reputation. A few decades removed from his death, though, many were singing a different tune when the late mobster’s abode was set to be demolished in 2021; an online petition to halt the development garnered over 25,000 signatures, per Mansion Global.

“Miami Beach risks losing an important part of not just our local history, but of US history if this demolition is allowed to proceed,” organizers wrote in the petition, calling the dwelling a “landmark structure” and warning of the “long-term negative impact on the community” its destruction would bring.

Much like its former occupant, the 1922 build met a grim end (despite public outcry) when it was reduced to rubble in August 2023. The former Palm Avenue estate is where Capone died in 1947.

Frank Costello

A different side of the Calabria-born crime boss—who was known as “the Prime Minister of the Underworld”—is revealed in Edna Murray’s photos of Costello and his wife, Loretta Geigerman, at home in Sands Point, New York. The infamous racketeer maintained a quaint estate on the North Shore of Long Island in addition to the couple’s swanky apartment on Central Park West.

Costello was released from prison after serving his second contempt sentence at Rikers Island in 1961. Though he had lived a colorful life, marked by various nefarious dealings, jail time, and a survived assassination attempt, it was said that gardening at his country dwelling and bringing his flowers to local shows was Costello’s greatest interest in later years.

Charles “Lucky” Luciano

In February 1946, Luciano was deported to his homeland, Italy. He had been serving out a sentence for pandering in New York prior to the voyage from Brooklyn Harbor to Naples, a 17-day journey by ship. He maintained an abode in the Southern Italy locale with his partner Igea Lissoni, a ballerina whom he met a short time after returning to the peninsula.

Because of his long rap sheet, Luciano was surveilled closely by officials in Italy. He was required by law to spend nights at home for several years. He suffered a fatal heart attack in 1962 at Naples International Airport, where he had plans to meet a producer to discuss a film about his life.

The Kray twins

The identical twins became some of the most well-known figures in English organized crime during their reign, which lasted from the 1950s until their life imprisonment sentence was handed down in 1968. When Ronald and Reginald Kray were around five years old—years before they were convicted of four murders—they moved to a residence on 178 Vallance Road in the Bethnal Green area of London. The Krays maintained the family home for decades, residing there throughout the bulk of their time operating with their gang, known as The Firm.

Some of the gang’s meetups allegedly took place in the front room of 178 Vallance, which has since been demolished.

Jack “Spot” Comer

The English gangster lived with his wife, Rita, and their two daughters in a flat at London’s Hyde Park Mansions, about a half hour away from the Fieldgate Mansions in Whitechapel, where he grew up. Comer and his wife were attacked about 100 yards away from the family home by “Mad” Frankie Fraser in 1956. Comer allegedly stepped back from his life of organized crime in the years following, pursuing a number of other less dangerous paths. It’s said that one of these such jobs was as an antique furniture dealer.