Al Capone, the former mafia boss of Chicago's South Side Gang, called this dazzling villa on Miami's Palm Island home up until his death in 1947. Encompassing 30,000 square feet, the lavish estate is a tropical idyll tucked away from the hustle and bustle, however, it won't be standing for much longer because the home's new owners are planning to raze the property.

Capone purchased his gangster hideout for $40,000 (£29k) in 1928 and would escape to the retreat when the cops – or rival gangs – in the Windy City got a little too close for comfort. To keep his enemies at arm's length, he splashed out a reported $200,000 (£163k) on security features, from searchlights to a seven-foot-high wall and a gatehouse. 

Following her husband's death, Mae Capone sold up in 1952, however, these recent photos of the house reveal that many of the original Art Deco features that the couple would've enjoyed still remain, including tiled fireplaces and an ornate powder room. But all this will soon be lost as according to the Miami Herald the property's new owners, who snapped up the house in the summer of 2021, intend to demolish it, citing flood damage and standing water beneath the structure.

American comedian Rosie O'Donnell finally sold her New Jersey estate in March 2021 for $5.3 million (£3.8m) – a loss of $1 million (£722k) on the price she paid back in 2013 – after the property had languished on the market for five years. However, according to the New York Post, the mansion is now expected to be demolished to make way for a collection of new homes.

Located in Saddle River, in an upscale property hotspot home to A-listers including Ja Rule and Mary J. Blige, the mansion is situated on a large five-acre lot. While it's seemingly destined for the bulldozer, the house is no rundown residence – it's a grand spread, from the wood-panelled entryway to the palatial backyard complete with a swimming pool, waterfall, Jacuzzi and plunge pool.

Donald Trump snagged the showstopping Palm Beach retreat La Maison de l'Amitié – which translates as 'House of Friendship' – for the knockdown price of $41 million (£30m) at a bankruptcy auction in 2004. Following the sale, Trump told The Palm Beach Daily News that he intended to turn the Florida mansion into the "second-greatest house in America", after his nearby Mar-a-Lago estate.

Although reports emerged that Trump spent as much as $25 million (£18m) renovating the mammoth 60,000-square-foot property, the real estate mogul and 45th president of the United States told Politico that he'd simply “cleaned it up a little bit, but not too much".

The extravagant beach home boasted everything from a ballroom, art gallery and 100-foot-long pool to diamond and gold fixtures and a garage with space for 40 cars. Incredibly, the mansion was purchased in 2008 by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for the inflated price of $95 million (£69m), $54 million (£39m) more than Trump initially paid for it, despite the property having a serious mould problem.

The transaction later raised eyebrows and attracted accusations of alleged money laundering, but Trump has since been cleared of any wrongdoing. In the end, the mould issue is said to have got so bad that Rybolovlev made the decision to have the property torn down. It was demolished in 2016 and split into three parcels, which the oligarch went on to sell for a combined total of around $108 million (£78m), enabling him to recoup his losses and then some.

Hollywood bombshell Jayne Mansfield splashed out the equivalent of around $700,000 (£506k) in today's money on this 10,000-square-foot Spanish Colonial mansion in LA's Holmby Hills back in 1957. She made the purchase shortly before tying the knot with Hungarian-American actor and former Mr Universe, Mickey Hargitay.

Mansfield hired set designer Glenn Holse to transform the 40-room property into what she later dubbed the 'Pink Palace'. It rocked Barbie-pink shag pile, a white and gold Steinway grand piano, a cupid fountain that flowed with rosé champagne and a heart-shaped pool, pictured here, built by her muscle-bound other half.

Following the actress's tragic death in a car accident in 1967, the luxurious home passed through several celebrity owners including Ringo Starr, who supposedly had the place painted white several times but couldn't stop the pink from coming through, Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas and classic crooner Engelbert Humperdinck, pictured here in the double-height living room.

After living in the manse for 26 years, Humperdinck sold it to his neighbour, the subprime mortgage tycoon Roland Arnall in 2002 for $30 million (£21.7m). Eager to expand his property, Arnall razed the house to the ground, much to the horror of conservationists. Today the plot on which the Pink Palace once stood has been incorporated into Arnall's Owlwood Estate.

The ultimate owner was later revealed to be billionaire oligarch Timur Kulibayev, but instead of setting up home in the property, he abandoned the expensive mansion. The country house deteriorated into such a sorry state that the local council threatened to confiscate it. After planning permission was obtained to knock it down, the dilapidated eyesore was reduced to rubble in 2016 and replaced with a larger home.

The most notorious drug lord of all time, Pablo Escobar is estimated to have been worth up to a staggering $30 billion (£22bn) by the early 1990s. While his main residence was in Colombia, the 'King of Cocaine' owned a number of dream homes around the world, including this pastel pink beach house in Miami.

Funded by ill-gotten gains, the infamous kingpin snapped up the 7,336-square-foot home in 1980 for $765,500 (£554k) and is likely to have used the flashy four-bedroom, six-bathroom villa as a cocaine drop safe house, according to Forbes. But Escobar didn't hang onto his Miami bolthole for very long. In 1987, US authorities seized the property and sold it on to local lawyer Roger Schindler, who paid $915,000 (£662k) for the privilege.

His crimes eventually caught up with him and the cartel boss was shot dead on 3 December 1993 in his hometown of Medellín by Colombian security forces. As for his former beach house, the property was damaged by fire in 2012 and remained unoccupied until it was purchased in 2014 by Christian de Berdouaré, the owner of the Chicken Kitchen restaurant chain, for $9.7 million (£7m).

Christian de Berdouaré had the property razed in 2014, but not before an extensive search was carried out – Escobar was known to squirrel away vast sums of cash in his various residences around the globe. As it happens, workers discovered a hidden safe during the demolition, though it's not clear what was inside. The restaurateur planned to replace it with a modern home but had a change of heart and the cleared plot was put on the market for $12.9 million (£9.3m), but the listing has since been taken down.

One of Fifth Avenue's most splendid Gilded Age mansions, the William K. Vanderbilt House was commissioned in 1879 by the scion's wife, Alva. According to Fortune's Children, a book written by clan descendent Arthur T. Vanderbilt II, she wanted to use the magnificent home to win acceptance into New York's elite high society.

Nicknamed the 'Petit Château', the pristine white limestone French Renaissance-style mansion at 660 Fifth Avenue was completed in the 1880s and garnered rave reviews, with the Architectural Record lauding its “distinction, elegance [and] dignity”. The interiors showcased the Vanderbilts' impeccable taste and were replete with sumptuous furnishings and artworks acquired from antique shops and hard-up aristocrats in Europe.

The salon was designed and assembled in Paris by prestigious interior decorating company Jules Allard and boasted an ebony bureau that once belonged to Marie Antoinette. Not long after the mansion's completion, Alva finally secured her position in New York society by throwing a glittering fancy dress ball that was the talk of the town. 

The power couple divorced in 1895 and the mansion was put on the market following William K. Vanderbilt's death in 1920. The beloved home of one of the world's most famous families remained vacant until the mid-1920s when it was purchased by real estate developer Benjamin Winter who promptly had the mansion demolished, erecting a towering office block in its place.

One of the first properties to be constructed in Chicago's upscale Gold Coast neighbourhood, this enormous Romanesque-style castle on Lake Shore Drive was the Windy City's largest private residence upon its completion in the 1880s. Built for developer Potter Palmer and his wife Bertha, the mansion went massively over-budget, eventually costing more than a million dollars.

The most breathtaking feature of the amazing American castle was the huge collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artworks amassed by Bertha Palmer, who was an avid collector. It included paintings by Pierre-August Renoir, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas. Today, these prized masterpieces are on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Since 1900, almost 2,000 of England's finest country piles have been demolished, according to Lost Heritage. Termed “the lost houses”, these stunning stately homes were razed as the nation's upper classes were hit with punishing death duties and taxes, and lost much of their power and influence. Among the most heartbreaking losses is The Deepdene on the outskirts of Dorking in Surrey, UK.

The estate had a long and illustrious history and was mentioned in the Domesday Book. The house dates from the 1760s when aristocrat Charles Howard built a Palladian mansion on the site. The estate was purchased in 1807 by Thomas Hope, who at the time was one of England's richest men. Hope enlarged the property, commissioning a library, gallery, orangery and more.

Hope was a keen collector of antiquities and the Deepdene's entrance hall was packed with ancient statues, but these were later replaced with reproductions. The mansion was remodelled again between 1836 and 1841 to resemble a Roman villa, before being leased out toward the end of the 19th century to Lily, Duchess of Marlborough – her nephew, Winston Churchill, was a frequent visitor.

The social changes of the 20th century spelled the end for the estate. In the 1920s, it was broken up and the house was converted into a posh hotel, which operated during the interwar years. The mansion served as offices for Southern Railway during the Second World War and beyond, but was eventually torn down in 1967 and replaced with this Brutalist office building.

The seat of the Dukes of Sutherland, Trentham Hall in Staffordshire, UK is also among the grandest country houses that were lost during the 20th century, but its demolition had nothing to do with the century's social changes. With the site's early occupation dating back to the Middle Ages, the country house was reconstructed in an Italianate style in 1833 under the supervision of famed architect Charles Barry, who designed the UK's Palace of Westminster.

The sprawling country pile was considered so magnificent that when the Shah of Persia visited in 1873, he remarked to the future King Edward VII that their host was “too grand for a subject, you'll have to have his head off when you come to the throne.” By the 1900s, however, the stately home was plagued by a serious pollution problem.

The nearby River Trent was heavily contaminated with sewage emanating upriver from Stoke-on-Trent, which pretty much made the house uninhabitable, such was the overpowering stench. No buyer was willing to take on the abandoned stately home, not even the local authority, and the majority of Trentham Hall was pulled down in 1912.

These days, little remains of the once-majestic country home. The few parts of the building that have survived include the square tower and grand entrance, which is pictured here. While the gardens have been recreated in all their former glory, the remnants of Trentham Hall are a sorry sight.

The family were forced to give up their home for good during the Second World War when it was taken over by the Nazis. After the war, the property was renamed the Château de Noisy and repurposed as an orphanage and holiday camp. The country house was last used as a school before it was abandoned in 1991.

Beset by neglect and vandalism, the eerie abandoned mansion was severely damaged by a fire in 1995, while a freak storm in 2006 destroyed much of what was left of the roof. In 2016, local developer Luc Lavroff had ambitious plans to dismantle the structure and rebuild it in Spain. 

Tragically, Lavroff was diagnosed with cancer in February 2017 and had to pull out of the deal, leaving the half-dismantled building in the hands of demolition firm Castignetti. Unable to find a buyer, the company made the difficult decision to demolish the château in October of the same year.

Built in the early 20th century for local factory owner Charles Winship, the eponymous two-and-a-half-storey Colonial Revival residence in Wakefield, Massachusetts was one of the grandest for miles around. The historic home featured capacious reception rooms, 11 bedrooms, eight bathrooms and even a swimming pool.

Inside, the lavish interiors wowed with rich mahogany panelling, wooden columns and an ornately carved staircase. The mansion was sold after Winship's death in 1946 and served as a convent until 1978 when it reverted to a private residence. 

A fire damaged the upper floor in 2005 and a few years later the mansion was lost to foreclosure in 2007. The bank was unable to offload it and the Charles Winship House was left vacant. Following its abandonment, the property was vandalised by trespassers who caused untold damage and trashed the interiors.

A shadow of its former self, the dilapidated dream home was sold in 2019 to local realtor James Gattuso for $585,900 (£424k). Despite its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, the house was deemed beyond repair and unviable for preservation. The once-glorious mansion was bulldozed in July 2020 and is set to be replaced by two single-family residences.

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