Godfather house is for sale

The Staten Island, New York, house that was used for exterior shots of the most famous fictional story in Mob history is up for sale.

The English Tudor-style house that was the New York home of Michael Corleone, his dad Vito and his mother, brothers and sister in The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II is on the market for $2.85 million. Interiors were shot elsewhere although news reports suggest the interior of this house was later remodeled to look like the house in the Godfather movies.

Francis Ford Coppola directed the two original Godfather movies, released in 1971 and 1974, and they are widely considered two of the best American movies ever made. The Godfather won three Oscars, including Best Picture, and The Godfather: Part II, won six Oscars, again including Best Picture – the only sequel to win the top honor. The films detail the rise of the Corleone family from humble beginnings as Italian immigrants to turn-of-the-century tenements in New York City, through conflict with older mobsters, and finally to the apex of American organized crime.

The Corleone family and its war with other Mob families was loosely based on the real-life Five Families in New York and the Commission created by Charlie “Lucky” Luciano in 1931.

You’ll recognize the house from the scene where Connie Corleone, daughter of the Godfather, Don Vito Corleone, marries ne’er-do-well Carlo Rizzi. That doesn’t end well, but it’s a lovely wedding.

According to The Godfather Wiki, a database for film fans, the real-life wedding of Bill Bonanno, son of Mob boss Joe Bonanno, and Rosalie Profaci, niece of Mob boss Giuseppe “Joe” Profaci, inspired the fictional Godfather wedding.

The house appears in several other scenes in the movie. In one, just outside the walls constructed to make the compound look more imposing and Godfather-esque, a Corleone family soldier smashes a newsman’s camera. And of course there’s the famous scene in which Don Vito’s son Sonny Corleone drives away from the mansion in a rage at the aforementioned Carlo, only to be gunned done at a highway toll booth.

The house for sale has five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, two fireplaces, two offices, a gym, an English-style pub, a “man cave” game room, four-car garage and a modest 6,248-square-foot interior on a sprawling 24,000-square-foot grounds. Also, there’s a saltwater pool.

According to the Staten Island Advance, Coppola, the cast and crew shot scenes for the two movies at the house for two months in the spring of 1971. A fake rock wall was constructed around the house, and neighborhood residents were used as extras.

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