Sumith Prasad
A significant part of Netflix’s biographical series ‘Griselda’ is set in Griselda Blanco’s house in Miami, Florida. The huge mansion becomes the home not only to the Blancos but also to her army of Cuban illegal immigrants and the women who smuggle drugs for her. In reality, Griselda’s mansion is infamous for bisexual orgies and a bronze statue of herself for her subordinates to touch and attain the best of luck from the “Godmother” of Miami’s drug scene. The house was situated in a highly prominent part of Miami-Dade County. The region was the home to several infamous figures, including the feared Pablo Escobar!
Griselda’s House in Miami
Griselda Blanco’s house was reportedly in Miami Beach, a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County. The region is located on barrier islands situated between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, which separates the place from the mainland city of Miami. Griselda had a German shepherd dog named Hitler guarding the mansion. As per sources, she also owned a penthouse on the Biscayne Bay. In addition to these properties, Griselda owned a mansion in Malibu, a beach city west of Los Angeles in California which is known for being the home to several Hollywood figures.
Pablo Escobar, one of the most influential drug lords ever lived, also had a mansion in Miami Beach. It was eventually seized by the authorities and put on sale. In 2014, Chicken Kitchen founder Christian de Berdouare bought the house for $9.65 million and demolished the house in the property. Christian had plans to build a modern mansion on the property and hoped that the value of the place would rocket to $40 million. However, he eventually sold the empty lot, without building the mansion, for $10.995 million in 2020.
The production department of the series used several houses to shoot the scenes set in Griselda’s house. The sequences which are set in the first house she buys and where she lives with her Colombian drug traffickers were shot in a house in Pomona, California, which was previously an asylum and hospital. For Griselda’s Palm Beach establishment, the crew relied on a house in Benedict Canyon, a neighborhood in the Westside of the city of Los Angeles. The house “is old money like Bel Air is old money,” said set decorator Kim Leonard, as per Netflix’s Tudum. “It’s Norma Desmond. It’s Miss Havisham — and exactly where Griselda would live if she were hiding out in LA,” added co-creator Eric Newman.
During her late years, Griselda owned several properties in Colombia. One of the notable ones among them is a 1,500 square-meter mansion located in the Lombardy urbanization of the city of Medellín.
Read More: Is German Panesso Inspired by an Actual Drug Dealer? Did Griselda Blanco Really Kill Him?
