An icon of 80s cinema returns to the market amidst history, excess and a surprising past, from the Richard Nixon era to Brian De Palma’s most famous set.
The mansion where Frank Lopez lived in Scarface it could be yours, for just $237 million. An amount that is not just used to buy a house by the sea, but a piece of the imaginary Eighties made up of excess, ambition and bad taste elevated to style.
In Brian De Palma’s film, the villa is the kingdom of Lopez’s calm and arrogant power, the place where Tony Montana enters as an outsider and then rewrites the rules of the game. It’s not the most famous house in the film, but it’s the one that sets the tone. Modern lines, open spaces, everything very clean and very controlled, as if the chaos had to stay outside. Of course it doesn’t happen.
Some details have remained identical, almost as if they were bound by a contract with the collective memory. The glass elevator, perfect for observing without being touched, and the piano-shaped swimming pool, which seems like an idea born after a high-alcohol dinner. Elements that today sound almost caricatured, but which at the time defined a certain type of luxury, one that is not afraid of being noticed, indeed it demands it.
The most interesting thing is that the story of the villa, off the set, manages to be even more unlikely. The land was part of Richard Nixon’s “Winter White House,” complete with a helicopter pad overlooking the bay. A seasonal presidential house that, over time, has decided to completely change its audience. In the 1980s, Roberto Striedinger, a pilot with questionable acquaintances, arrived and built the modern villa. He will later be convicted of cocaine trafficking linked to the Medellín cartel and the property will be seized by the government. At that point Scarface it almost seems like a documentary.
Today the home measures approximately 13,000 square feet, sits on more than two acres of land and has 862 feet of water frontage. The old helicopter pad has been converted into a marina, ready to welcome 60 meter yachts. The current owner, John Devaney, purchased it in 2003 for $15 million. At the time it was already a huge deal, today it has become a bet on how much someone is willing to pay to say “this is Scarface’s house”. Devaney, who also survived the financial crisis without too much damage, seems to focus on a simple principle. If the luxury market has become theater, we might as well sell the stage directly.
