Bugsy Siegel’s House

Just around the corner from the Witch’s House in Beverly Hills is one of the most famous crime scenes in Hollywood history – the home where legendary mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel was murdered on June 20, 1947. This home is often cited as being owned by the famous mobster at the time of his death, but in reality it was leased by his girlfriend, actress Virginia Hill. Born on February 28, 1906 to a poor Brooklyn family, Bugsy, who by all accounts absolutely loathed his nickname, went own to become one of the most notorious and cold-blooded mobsters in history.

On that fateful night in 1947, Bugsy returned home from a dinner with friends and retreated to his living room with two friends. The living room area of his house is located to the right of the front door and the windows of that room are pictured above.

At 10:45 pm, while Bugsy sat on his couch reading the Los Angeles Times, his murderer crept up a neighbor’s driveway and fired off nine rounds from a 30/30 shotgun through a side window of Bugsy’s house. Four of those rounds hit Busgy in the head, killing him immediately and sending one of his eyeballs clear across the room. YUCK! The cold-blooded mobster, who is often credited with “creating Las Vegas” was dead at 41. His murder has never been solved.

On an interesting side note, about a year before Bugsy’s death, on July 7, 1946, Howard Hughes crashed one of his airplanes into two homes located across the street from Bugsy’s death house, almost killing himself in the process. One of the homes he crashed into is pictured above.

Bugsy’s death was famously re-enacted in the movie Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty and Annette Benning. But, for reasons unknown, producers did not use the real life home where his murder took place for the filming of the biopic. Instead a home in Hancock Park was used (pictured above).

A HUGE thank you to E.J. from The Movieland Directory for sharing with me a chapter from his book, Hollywood Death and Scandal Sites , and a wealth of information on the life and death of Bugsy Siegel for this post. When I first started writing this entry, I asked E.J. if he had any good stories about Bugsy’s home to share with me. About twenty pages of reading material from E.J. later, this post was born. ๐Ÿ™‚ Thanks, E.J.!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! ๐Ÿ™‚

Stalk It: Bugsy’s real life former home and death site is located at 810 North Linden Drive, in Beverly Hills. Howard Hughes’ crash site is located just across the street at 903 and 905 North Linden Drive. The home where Bugsy dies in the movie about his life is located at 425 S. Plymouth Boulevard in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

15 Replies to “Bugsy Siegel’s House”

  1. A 30-30 shotgun??? Spilled coffee on my laptop from laughing so hard!. Another piece of mis-information was losing an eyeball to a bullet. Bugsy’s death photo CLEARLY shows the bullet wound on the side of his face close to, but not in, the eye socket. Just another lurid piece of invented non-news.

  2. One thing is that when you’re searching for a student loan you may find that you’ll want a cosigner. There are many circumstances where this is correct because you should find that you do not possess a past history of credit so the loan company will require that you have someone cosign the borrowed funds for you. Thanks for your post.

  3. The reason the movie wasn’t filmed at 810 N. Linden Drive was because the owners (long time family friends) declined. They weren’t offered enough to outweigh the hassles.

  4. I went to a sick pool party in the one on the top more than a decade ago. Tons of people. singers. Lakers. I got video too. lol.

    1. A family friend, elderly at that, lived there until August of ’03 then it got transferred to family and was eventually sold. So, either you’re full of it or way off on your dates. Most likely the former.

        1. Yeah, Virginia Hill was renting it from him. I can’t find anything about him being related to Cesar Romero though. Our family friends owned/lived in the house from the 60’s? up until 2003, when the widow turned it over to her children and it was eventually sold. I spent many an afternoon swimming there in the 70’s-80’s.

          1. Hi st thanks for your validation and comment im always interested in history I like your story about swimming there.

  5. Great research and good, clear photos. Three notes. 1) You would not use a shotgun if you were firing from a person’s neighbor’s driveway, in an attempt to shot someone through a window. Shotguns are generally not very accurate at such a distance, blasting through glass – even if a slug is used instead of standard shotgun shells which spray round pellets (that’s why they are used in bird hunting). Wikipedia correctly identifies the murder weapon as an M1 rifle – as shown in “Bugsy.” For once Hollywood got it right!
    2) The shot which damaged Bugsy’s left eye came in from the right side of his face and broke the cheek bone under the eye, the eye then falling forward from the socket but not flying across the room. It hung on Bugsy’s face, held in place by the optic nerve tissues. The eyeball was intact.
    3) The caption under Photos 6 states that Howard Hughes crashed a plane into two houses located across from his “death” house – Virginia Hill’s leased home. However, below the photos there is a section titled “Stalk It” which states that Hughes crashed across from Bugsy’s “real life former home and death site….” There is a contradiction here.
    Thanks for the great job. Very fascinating to sit on the east coast and see these places.

    1. It’s not a contradiction – because Bugsy lived at the house at the time of his death, the property would be considered his “real life former home”, even if his girlfriend was the one who actually leased it. ๐Ÿ™‚

      1. I’m just trying to find out how much they or her Virgina we’re leasing it for?? Just curious, since no one knows…

Leave a Reply