A Peek Inside Montreal Mob Boss Rizzuto's Home



A picture of reputed Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto's five-bedroom home, which is for sale
on Antoine Berthelet St., which has been dubbed "Mafia row." It's been valued at $1 million.

From the Montreal Gazette: After nearly two years on the market, the sumptuous Montreal residence belonging to Vito Rizzuto and his wife may be changing hands.

A buyer has made a conditional promise to purchase the five-bedroom, Tudor-style home of the reputed Montreal crime boss, which was first put up for sale in 2011with a $2 million price tag. The accepted offer on the home in Ahuntsic-Cartierville, now listed at $1.5 million, hinges on the buyer being able to obtain financing, and the results of a home inspection – both of which must be done by March 23, according to a copy of the listing.

“So far so good,” listing broker Leon Derestepanian tells me. “When they built it (during the 1980s) they used all high quality materials.”

Derestepanian couldn’t disclose the price offered for the home, nor the identity of the prospective buyer, whom he said comes from Montreal and has no links to organized crime.

“The potential buyer is a large Montreal family who appreciates the area,” he said.


The home, on a 14,000 square foot site, is located on Antoine Berthelet Ave., a street often dubbed “Mafia row” because of the notoriety of some of its inhabitants. Four homes are believed to have served as the hub of Montreal’s Cosa Nostra, according to media reports, including the residence of Vito Rizzuto, his brother-in-law Paulo Renda who was kidnapped in 2010 and never found and relative Giuseppe (Joe) Lo Presti. And of course, there’s Nicolo Rizzuto Sr., who was shot and killed in his house in 2010 by an assassin hiding in the woods behind the home.









City records show the home is valued at $1 million and listed in the name of Rizzuto’s wife, Giovanna Rizzuto Cammalleri. Rizzuto, 66, no longer lives at the home; some media reports raised speculation that he moved to Toronto after being released from a U.S. prison inRizzuto has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness before Quebec’s Charbonneau Commission, which is investigating corruption in the construction industry, The Gazette reported last week.

“They are a very nice family,” Derestepanian said of the Rizzutos. “Very humble people.

“This is like a regular sale for me,” Derestepanian said of the listing, which he said was a referral from another client.

According to the listing, available only to real estate brokers, the Rizzutos once lived in a lavish 11-room home with five large bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms (including bidets) and two powder rooms. The home features a granite entrance, living room woodwork in oak, a backyard patio as long as the house, “immense family room,” and “splendid kitchen with mahogany cabinets in impeccable condition.” Not to mention the living room with the marble fireplace, the listing reads.

Buyers, Derestepanian said, weren’t turned off at the prospect of living in Rizzuto’s old home.

“Whoever came to see (the Rizzuto home) knew where they were coming.”

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