by Deirdre Bair
“Capone’s Son Finds Sins of Father Heavy,” read the headline with the subhead “Mother Pleads for Lad, Victim of Schoolmates’ Torment.” It was an interesting but untrue headline, for Sonny Capone did not attend school; he was still being taught at home by his mother and private tutors. In the article, Lingle was partially kind to Mae as he let her explain in her own words how hurt she was to see her little boy suffer. She explained that she wanted all the negative publicity to stop and for all those camped outside her house to leave them alone and stop writing about them. Mae was naive enough to think it would be that simple, that all she had to do was appeal to people’s better natures and they would go away, freeing her and her family from living in a public fishbowl. Al, being more sophisticated, thought he could control other, larger issues if he kept a few malleable reporters on the payroll and got them to print his version of whatever that day’s story was.
Neither Mae nor Al understood that they had become celebrities who would be forever hounded, and even if they did nothing newsworthy, stories would still be written about them. Both would eventually realize that events were spiraling beyond their control and they had no chance to maintain any semblance of privacy in the public circus their lives had become. There was no going back, and a new way had to be found to move forward.
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Al Capone thought he had found a way to manage the press when he let reporters know (truthfully) in January 1928 that he was setting out for Florida with the intention of spending the winter months in Miami. To ensure that every big-city and small-town official knew he was coming, he told reporters exactly what he wanted them to print: that he intended to buy a house somewhere in the state but was concentrating on Miami. Then he indulged in a bit of embellishment designed to placate the populace, saying he would live the life of an honest and law-abiding citizen who would plant himself firmly in the community by opening a restaurant and joining the Rotary Club. That did more to inflame than soothe public apprehension and outrage; it also encouraged reporters to ask the chief of police in Miami what he intended to do when the most prominent gangster in the country detrained in his city. What else could the chief say but “if he’s just here to have a good time and doesn’t start any rough stuff, I won’t bother him”? And that was exactly what Al Capone wanted to know.
The press conference was a preemptive strike, for Capone knew there could be the same sort of resistance in Miami that he had encountered in Los Angeles, particularly after he announced that he wanted to buy property. There were a lot of rich people in the area, and none of them wanted him for a neighbor, so it seemed prudent to let everyone see him doing exactly what he said he would do, live the quiet life of an exemplary citizen. It also seemed prudent to rent until he could get the lay of the land, but there again he was canny enough to know that no homeowner would entrust valuable property to him if he used his real name. His lawyers used a false one to rent a house on a posh Miami Beach street for six months, which might have gone unnoticed if they had not also rented the penthouse of the swank Hotel Ponce de León in downtown Miami for his headquarters by using a straw man there as well.
Actually, both actions bordered on the silly, for reporters had been covering his every move since he left Chicago and were staking out both the house and the hotel before he even got there. He could promote himself all he wanted as an unfortunate businessman who was just looking for a refuge, but nobody was buying that story. The reporters and Capone’s bodyguards took turns teasing and taunting each other outside the house, thus ensuring a constant supply of unflattering anecdotes for news stories. And when the menacing miens of the bruisers who protected him were on display in the hotel lobby, they were enough to frighten the tourists away, never mind the good citizens. Groups like the chamber of commerce and the local Women’s Club were in high dander as they besieged the mayor, John Newton Lummus Jr., to get rid of Al Capone. His Honor dutifully obeyed, summoning Capone to his office in January 1928 and asking him to leave because “a majority of the citizens do not want him here.”
Capone went to the office as commanded and promptly proceeded to charm not only the mayor but also the city manager and the police chief, who flanked him on either side. He won them all over without offering a single bribe or the hint of a threat by suavely playing the poor picked-upon good guy who couldn’t get a break or a square deal wherever he went. He told Mayor Lummus that he would never stay where he was not wanted, but he liked Florida and hoped he would not have to leave Miami, as he had not had time to think about where he would take his sweet wife and innocent son if they had to go. Some of Al’s descendants chuckle when they tell this story, saying he already knew Miami was his last hope for finding a haven. He had earlier been told he would be run out of St. Petersburg after some of his lawyers made discreet inquiries about several properties there, and Ralph and Albert had been thrown unceremoniously in jail overnight when they tried to buy real estate for him in New Orleans. When asked why he would not consider Cuba, Al turned that idea down flat because of the language difference; he simply did not like Puerto Rico (too poor for his taste), and when the Bahamas (which he did like) heard he was interested, an ordinance was passed to ban him from owning property there.
Capone so charmed the Miami mayor that after the meeting ended, Lummus repeated Capone’s own words to reporters, saying Al was a fair and reasonable man who only wanted to be left in peace to enjoy the sunshine with his wife and son, whose health was fragile. After that, it was smooth sailing, even though the couple who owned the rental house quaked at the thought of the damage Chicago gangsters might do to the property when they learned the real name of their tenant.
Mae was thrilled to be in Miami, first, because Teresa and Mafalda were not there and, second, because it was the first time in her marriage that she had ever lived apart from them in a house of her own. Even though it was a rental and the furnishings were of fine quality, she quickly set out on shopping sprees to buy all sorts of extra comforts for the house. She endeared herself to the local shopkeepers who could not overpraise the charming, modest, cultured, polite, and elegant Mrs. Capone (the adjectives abounded), the smartly dressed and chic wife of the notorious and dangerous criminal in their midst. They waxed eloquent in public but privately derided her taste in interior decor, which her grandchildren admit was often that of someone who grew up poor and was suddenly able to spend vast sums of money on household objects and furnishings that were of excellent quality but also sometimes quite over the top.
Unfortunately for Mae, there was one major irritant that came with the house: it also came with Al’s brothers, their wives and girlfriends, and many of the men from the Outfit, who all thought nothing of dropping in unannounced and staying for hours. Al expected Mae to offer hospitality to everyone, no matter who they were or what time they arrived, and she was gracious enough to do it. He also needed her to arrange parties that were extravagant in their food and drink and at the same time passed for good taste in an often flamboyant community, for he knew that if he wanted to buy his own house and ensure that the deal would proceed smoothly, he needed to woo prominent locals to help him acquire it.
He was always careful in his business dealings, never signing his name to any document, never establishing banking accounts in his own name, always working through intermediaries who did the deeds that made things happen the way he wanted. Tony Berardi put it best: “He was no dummy. He was one hell of an organizer. He knew how to pick people for certain positions in certain categories.”
Even though he had used phony names for rentals, he knew better than to risk doing so in the purchase of a real estate property transaction, and because there was still enough residual resentment of his being in Miami, he knew it would be best to have an outsider make the deal for real property. He needed someone both malleable and gullible to do his bidding, and he found just such a wide-eyed sycophant in the manager of the Ponce de León, a young man called Parker A. Henderson Jr., who also happened to be the well-conn
ected son of a former mayor. Henderson was only too eager to befriend the local celebrity-in-residence, as he found it both thrilling and chilling to hang out with the tough guys who surrounded him.
“Mr. A. Costa” had taken the lease on the hotel suite, and whenever he needed someone to pick up a money order that had come from Chicago or to send one off, Henderson didn’t mind disguising his handwriting and signing Mr. Costa’s name for him. Eventually, Henderson was only too happy to represent Mr. Costa when he was “too busy to expend his energy” inspecting real estate in person. Henderson worked directly with agents who scrambled to gather a selection of suitable properties that could be presented for the rich, mysterious, and fictitious Mr. Costa’s approval. Very soon that ruse became unnecessary, once newspaper headlines splashed the news of the search.
“Capone Hunted,” blared the Chicago Tribune; “But by Realty Men,” read the subhead in smaller type. As it turned out, working with real estate agents was just another ruse, for Mayor Lummus was also in the real estate business, a part of a family concern that had been involved in developing Miami tourism for several generations, and it was he who conveniently became the buyer’s agent of record when Al Capone finally bought his house on March 27, 1928.
He had received enough sound legal advice to know that besides not using a fictitious name on the deed of sale, he should not give the necessary cash directly or have it pass through channels in his real name. Cash wired from Chicago was passed surreptitiously to Henderson to secure the purchase in his name until he could transfer the property quietly and easily to Mrs. Mae Capone. In all, Henderson signed for cash and money orders totaling $31,000 that Al used for his lavish living and business expenses, plus another $10,000 that was filtered for Henderson to use as the down payment on a property costing $40,000. Lummus secured a mortgage for the remaining $30,000, and all was well until Henderson went to transfer the property to Mae. By law at the time, all mortgages had to be insured, so when the application was made in Mae’s name, every insurance company recoiled in horror, and none would sell a policy to the gangster Capone or any member of his family. Thus no mortgage could be secured, so Al simply paid the rest of the money owed in “other ways,” which meant that he filtered cash to Henderson in names other than his own.
Unfortunately, the pleasure, indeed the joy, he took in acquiring the house turned out to have serious consequences that were not foreseen by him or his lawyers. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a vague and ill-defined law that said even illegal income was subject to taxation, which was the first time the federal government had a concrete issue to pursue against Al Capone. Federal officials were aware that he had been living lavishly in Florida, even gifting Henderson with one of his trademark diamond belt buckles, and that he was now the owner of an expensive property that was being thoroughly and expensively renovated and expanded. Tax law at that time required that anyone earning more than $5,000 in legitimate income had to pay income taxes, which Al Capone had never paid, because he did not earn that amount legitimately. And as everything he did earn was carefully shielded and sheltered by the financial wizards who worked for the Outfit, he ostensibly had no illegitimate income either. But deeds of sale for expensive property did not float down like feathers to land on the heads of lucky buyers, and so the IRS had every right to raise its collective bureaucratic eyebrows as it looked on Al Capone long enough to wonder: Where did all the money come from?
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The address was 93 Palm Avenue on Palm Island, a strip of land on Biscayne Bay that was part of Miami Beach and not in Miami proper, just slightly out of reach and thus offering a respite from the angry citizens of the city. It was built in 1922 by Clarence M. Busch of the Anheuser-Busch dynasty. Ironically, Prohibition, which was the basis of Al’s fortune, meant hard times for the legitimate brewing industry, so Busch had sold the house several years earlier to another buyer, who then sold it to the Capones in 1928. By area standards, it was pleasant but not palatial. The house itself was white stucco with a separate three-room gatehouse next to the public road that guarded access. The lot was relatively small, but it had a hundred feet of water frontage where Al docked the speedboat and thirty-two-foot cabin cruiser he bought as soon as the property was legally his. He was so proud of the cabin cruiser that he named it the Sonny and Ralphie, after his and Ralph’s sons, who had become as close as brothers while being raised together mainly by Mae in the Prairie Avenue house. They were close friends as children and remained so as adults. There was no pool, so Al had one built with a double-filtration system for both salt and fresh water; at thirty by sixty feet, it was then the largest private swimming pool in all of Florida. There were never any fish in this pool, although stories persist to this day that there were. Al had a two-story cabana house built next to it and also another separate two-story guesthouse. He loved spiral staircases, so some of the buildings had at least one. By the time he was finished remodeling, there were seven bedrooms, five full baths, and two powder rooms in the main house. There was also a rock pool, which gave him a tranquil setting he enjoyed, but contrary to some of the fables told about the property, members of the Capone family never met there for daily group prayers that included saying the rosary.
Al had the entire property enclosed by tall privacy walls of concrete blocks that were screened from view by expensive shrubbery; the heavy iron gates were further fortified by massive oak doors inside them that barred outsiders from seeing down the driveway. An exterior telephone allowed visitors to call the main house, and bodyguards could screen them through a peephole before they were admitted. Iron bars were installed on the windows of the guardhouse, and the entire lot was turned into an impregnable fortress. All this cost well over an additional $100,000 (almost $1.5 million in contemporary dollars).
And then there was the interior, on which Mae lavished untold and never-totaled sums of money. With a few exceptions, like the gold-plated faucets on the black fixtures in the downstairs powder room, she had fairly good taste despite a penchant for ornate (but excellent) reproductions of furniture in the French Louis XIV style, most of which she had painted white with gold gilt and upholstered in a vibrant chartreuse because it was the fashionable color of the moment. Al insisted on a life-sized oil painting of himself and Sonny that dominated the living room, and she decorated contentedly around it. The master bedroom featured a king-sized four-poster bed, which she had covered in subdued fabrics that did little to divert attention from the massive wooden trunk at the foot of it. It was supposedly filled with cash, with Al allegedly boasting that it was safer to keep it there than to put it in a bank, where robbers could steal it. Al and Mae’s descendants claim this is another myth, for the chest was where she stored extra bedding.
Mae set an elegant table, as she was fond of silver and bought lavishly in flatware and serving pieces; she liked fine china and lots of it, so there were many complete sets of dishes. Otherwise, she chose things that were similar to and would have been suitable for any upscale dwelling in the area. She did give parties that were huge and extravagant, but the people who attended knew they were expected to behave; if guests wanted to be invited back, there would be no raucous behavior, spilled drinks, or unfortunate stains on any of Mae Capone’s pale upholstery and expensive rugs. The only sour note to her entertaining came when some of the guests decided they needed to have a souvenir of their visit and walked off with something that could fit into pockets or purses. Over the years, everything from silver salvers to spoons and ashtrays found their way to various auction blocks claiming provenance from the “Capone mansion.”
Two of her parties were so elaborate and so different from the usual manner in which Miami socialites celebrated that they became staples of local dinner party chatter before becoming legends about the Capone family’s life in Miami. To calm the outrage (real or feigned) of the Miami business community over the purchase of the Palm Island property, Al invited around seventy-five of the most influential men in town to dinner. Mae had he
r cooking staff prepare an elaborate Italian feast that featured pasta—an item hitherto not offered at fancy dinner parties—while Al provided a bar that featured soft drinks, mineral waters, juices, and no booze. After a musicale, one of the guests saluted him as “the new businessman of the community” and gifted him with a fountain pen.
Sonny’s twelfth birthday party was held on December 18, 1930, and was another event that brought the children of some of Miami’s elite to Palm Island. Mae had no intention of going back to Chicago when winter came, so she had enrolled Sonny in the prestigious and private Catholic school St. Patrick’s, where the nuns tried to screen the students from any unpleasant and unsavory news of the outside world. For his party, she had invited fifty classmates. However, before they could enter the property, all of the young guests had to provide, along with their presents, a letter signed by their parents saying they were allowed to be there, for Mae had carefully included such a document along with the engraved invitations. Whether out of “curiosity, dare-deviltry, or inverted snobbishness,” all the parents agreed to let their children eat cake and ice cream and frolic on the Capone family’s property.
Sonny was about to become a teenager, and Mae was still doing everything she could to shield him from the reality of his father’s life. He had a good idea of what that entailed, having seen the tough guys always hanging around and having assimilated details of his father’s doings from snatches of overheard conversation and seeing the occasional headline when Mae was not quick enough to hide the papers. He also had Ralphie as a source of information, for his father, Ralph “Bottles,” was an uncouth man who did nothing to mitigate his vulgarity and shot off his mouth in front of everyone, even his sensitive young son. Nevertheless, Sonny loved his mother—and his father, too—and as he grew up, he went along with the facade of respectability Mae built around Al, and the loving and compliant Sonny was willing to let her think that he believed it.