What inside info does Swamplot have to spill about this 6,648-sq.-ft. mansion on more than an acre off Memorial Dr. in Bayou Woods?
Absolutely none. Really: We don’t know a thing about it.
Okay, okay — nothing other than . . . uh, publicly available information. And this little reader comment last week that tipped us all off. Yeah, you read it too!
“Vinny Ocean†is selling his Memorial mansion. It is now listed at [$]3.5M. How much would YOU offer knowing that some mouthbreathing NJ thug might not know Palermo sold it and no longer lives there? I’d knock 3M right off the top. You really oughta amble over to HAR and take a look at this place – over the TOP!
Who’s Vinny Ocean?
***
Just a longtime nickname for Vincent Palermo, the former acting boss of New Jersey’s DeCavalcante crime family who later turned government informant. Thanks to the federal witness protection program, Palermo has a new home and new name.
You might know him as the owner or landlord of a few local establishments: the Penthouse Club, All Stars Cabaret, Ruchi’s Grill, and the Super Clean Car Wash, all near Winrock and Westheimer. Last September, New York Daily News reporter Greg B. Smith discovered Palermo in Houston, going by the name of Vincent Cabella, sporting a new Van Dyke beard, and hiding out in this little 5-6 bedroom, 5 1/2 bath cabana, where no one would ever have expected to find him:
A little more than a month later, Cabella’s Memorial Dr. home quietly went on the market. Maybe too quietly: Records show the asking price was axed by a cool half-million at the end of last year.
- 9105 Memorial Dr. [HAR]
- Strip club king and mob rat Vincent Palermo up to his old tricks in Texas [NY Daily News]
- Reported Mob Boss Hiding In Houston [Click2Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Former Mob Boss to Penthouse Club: Keep Your Pants On
Looks like he let his grandmother pick out the interior decor while he munched on divinity.
Why do so many apparently wealthier individuals have absolutely NO good taste in design? That house is atrocious! Love the beige!
Of course he’d have a Scarface poster in his theater room!
This is potentially the most excellent Swamplot story ever. Murderer/informant mobster “hiding” out in Memorial (where his home, a monument to bad taste fits right in), running strip clubs (both of which get shut down as public nuisances for all the blatant prostitution taking place–but one is somehow able to reopen–don’t ask me how), now apparently relocated again. Just the hints we’ve gotten of his sojourn in Houston are positively riveting (even if it makes me feel slightly soiled to admit it).
Decor by Gallery Furniture. Lighting by who knows except whoever did the lighting knows nothing about scale with regard to chandeliers. And you do NOT put chandeliers in the kitchen. It’s just, well, tacky.
The bedrooms however could have used some chandeliers instead of the tacky ceiling fans and Home Depot fixtures.
The FBI really should help their little snitches and other assorted psychos blend in a little better than they appear to do. How long could he have remained hidden running strip clubs?
The FBI should also provided an interior decorator.
I am so glad to see that I’m not alone in finding this decor um, er, ugly.
But, then again, I’m not sure what a mob boss house should look like.
From PYEWACKET2:
I am so glad to see that I’m not alone in finding this decor um, er, ugly.
But, then again, I’m not sure what a mob boss house should look like.
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Wouldn’t you have been slightly disappointed if it had been bland but tasteful?
I drive past this place everyday on the way to and from work…I wish there were more like it on Memorial…the rest of the street has become far too Tuscan.
No doubt the listing agent will be getting calls. In the middle of the night. And it isn’t going to be Avon calling…
…both of which get shut down as public nuisances for all the blatant prostitution taking place–but one is somehow able to reopen–don’t ask me how…
________________
How? The FBI likes to keep their snitches and assorted psychos happy.
Oh good god. This reminds me of a great SNL skit with Scarlett Johansson — Ya gotta get a chandalier!
Isn’t the whole point of the witness protection program to be discrete? How can you be discrete when you’re living like that?
I see the elephants are still out front. Did he keep the Shiva?
I’m glad to see Carmela’s spec house turned out the way she envisioned it..
I’m digging the pool.. the rest might as well end up on the swamplot daily demolition derby..
Unless it’s just the decor which turns me off..
Matt Mystery, I do not think Gallery Furniture was the provider of the furniture. If you look closer to the Dinning Room furniture, it has distinct attributes with the American Drew – Jessica McClintock collection.
I tried figuring out the other pieces in the other rooms and it appears the white wash part of the Jessica McClintock but cannot be for certain.
If that is the case then it must be a pre-closing Finger Furniture store sale.
Where all all the Finger sale reps like Don Cash,
and the one that was always the highest sales rep for the month on the Gulf Freeway, “Sammy Lacorte”
Yeah, the elephant is just the right touch for Memorial Drive. I’ve noticed one on Sul Ross next to the former Wilshire Village complex.
Isn’t the whole point of the witness protection program to be discrete? How can you be discrete when you’re living like that?
__________________________
I suspect it was the strip clubs that gave him away. Particularly after they reopened.
What’s fun is when they leave their old drivers license lying around. “I thought you said your name was…”
If you look closer to the Dinning Room furniture, it has distinct attributes with the American Drew – Jessica McClintock collection.
_______________________
I tried to not look closely at the dining room. Something about the chandelier. About the only place I would hang it is in a closet. And even then one that no one would ever go into.
So who really owns it all? Vinny or the FBI?
Witness protection program? Was(is) this a taxpayer funded affair?
Sometimes I love the fact that Houston has so many nouveau-riche residents with bad taste. They’re a never ending source of entertainment for the rest of us.
Methinks Patricia Slade is very, very jealous that someone bought more from Noel than she did.
How bad is it that this guy could live here as long as he did without being noticed? UGH!
I propose a new home tour – The Inaugural Ill-gotten Gains Home and Boat Tour could start here, run through a few of the Lay’s properties, and make a stop at the house of that drug dealer featured a few weeks ago. I’m sure we’d have no trouble digging up a few more properties to feature, either. You know these guys can’t be the only big-time gangsters sharing our streets and patronizing our malls, right?
*insert inappropriate ethnic joke about Italians and gold leaf*
Anything associated with Matt Dilick and Tilman Fertitta.
‘scarlet, i don’t give a damn…’
Jessica1 –
You are on the right track on proposing a new home tour, “The Inaugural Ill-gotten Gains Home and Boat Tour”.
Let’s incentives these distended carnivores, or mesocarnivaroes, by offering them to optimize their tax avoidance schemes. Even their CPAs will be amazed.
First, register the tour under IRS code, section 501(c)(3) and have an officer of the charity document an order to the carnivore that their home must meet certain conditions to be on the home tour. Certain conditions are not limited to “fixing the fence”,”painting back library wall”,”or installing a $30k window dressing”.
There you have it!
Sigma
I & my family knew this family (kids too) in N.Y. before this happened! Found out in the newspaper,about the witness thing. Was stunned. I was in their house here, nice on the water, but not like that mansion! I think it’s beautiful, like out of a magazine, if you kike that Trump Style! Actually sold Avon to his wife. Very nice,innocent like., wasn’t allowed to work, or go to a unisex gym. Kids very smart my son knew his son from school, then they went to a private one. I was sad to see her go. Never got to say goodby. I found this by couriously googling his name,& see if he was still alive. A nice guy, you would never know he did that stuff. Like you said why would he live like that in hiding?? Have they moved them again?? Just found out my son & their son are friends on facebook!!
So facebook trumps the witness protection program?
How unsettling.
The house is for sale again privately. I was asked to give an estimate for add-ons.