Designs on a mobster lifestyle

Sopranos fans keen to recreate the mobster lifestyle in their own home can now buy the blueprints to Tony’s home on the internet.

Victor and Patti Recchia, who own the real-life mini mansion the hit gangster series centres around, charge £400 (€626.50) to download the designs.

Their website, www.sopranohomedesign.com, urges viewers to “incorporate a piece of The Family into your home.”

It offers a CD Rom featuring the five bedroom house and its extensive grounds, including floor plans, elevations, shots of the pool and recommendations for contractors.

Mr Recchia, 48, built the £2.4m (€3.76m) home himself, together with the other homes in the cul de sac in North Caldwell, New Jersey, which are also used in the show.

He said he expected many people who were remodelling their home, or designing their dream house, would want to build replicas of “the most famous house in the country.”

The programme’s makers used the home as the set for the pilot version of the show and is still used for outdoor scenes.

A replica of the house was reconstructed at a film studio in Queens for interior shots.

To most viewers it is best known as the place where Tony Soprano decided to have Vincent Bonpensiero killed.

But Mrs Recchia told the New York Times: “It’s a great house for eating and entertaining.”

The Sopranos, which is screened on Network 2 in Ireland, has become the most successful cable series ever in the US where it is regularly watched by 14 million viewers.