Reilly 003

The house. There have only been three owners of my family home: Frank Costello, the gangster for whom it was built, in the 1930's; a family in between; my own family - we moved in when I was eight, about 1992.

Some things have changed with the house since Frank's time. This is the back of the house, for instance, looking from the far end of the backyard, over the pool, at the back door. When it was Frank's house, the driveway wrapped around the house, making this back door the front door. There's a tiny bathroom (which wasn't then a bathroom) under the staircase with four spaces in the brick wall where a window should be, for his henchmen's guns - just in case. Also, the pool, which was put in by the family inbetween, was once the place where Frank grew an award-winning rose orchard. There are only about three or four rose bushes left, though.

We found a safe in the basement, too! Although, like Capone's, it was empty when we finally got it open. And a system of wires that our contractor found that were cut off, so he couldn't find where they went or what exactly they opened or operated.