The former waterfront home of Pablo Escobar, a notorious Colombian drug lord, will be knocked down on Tuesday, wiping the Miami Beach property clean of its infamous past.
Escobar paid $760,000 for the home in 1980
The 33,000-square-foot property at 5860 North Bay Road was reportedly never searched after it was seized in 1987 by the federal government. It was later owned Roger and Leslie Schindler before Chicken Kitchen founder Christian de Berdouaré and his wife, former local news anchor Jennifer Valoppi, purchased it in May 2014 for $9.65 million. The demolition will be part of a documentary about the home’s past, according to a press release.
The 5,800-square-foot pink home was built in 1948, according to Miami-Dade property records. In his heyday, Escobar, known as the “King of Cocaine,” reportedly supplied 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States. Escobar paid $760,000 for the North Bay Road home in 1980, and reportedly used it for work and play. He was shot and killed in 1993 in Medellin, Colombia.
Producers are including a hidden safe and weapons from the 1970s in the documentary, according to the release. De Berdouaré, who is also selling a spec home at 5004 North Bay Road for $35.9 million, will redevelop the property into a multimillion-dollar mansion. – Katherine Kallergis and Sean Stewart-Muniz