The red and white house on Grey Street in London has become infamous in the London’s SOHO neighbourhood.
Surrounded by a fence and outfitted with security cameras and flood lights, the single-storey home stood out from other houses on the one-way street.
Neighbours were hesitant to talk about who lived in the single-storey house and the frequent motorcycle-riding guests.
Then a full-patch Hells Angels member was shot outside the home that was purported to be a clubhouse for the London chapter of the world’s largest outlaw motorcycle gang.
Now, the two-bedroom home is selling for $299,900, well below the average London home price of $520,000.
The home’s red-and-white theme continues into its interior, where the trim, doors and even ceiling fans are painted in Hells Angels’ red.
The listing for the “cozy” house describes it as an “investor’s dream.”
“Large front deck and a private fully fenced back yard. Large driveway with ample parking in addition to car port,” the advertisement says. The home is located just southwest of the Adelaide Street-Hamilton Road intersection.
The purported clubhouse first came onto the public radar in 2011 after a weekend party drew nearly 100 people – many of them wearing biker patches and riding motorcycles – to the house located across from an elementary school.
Some neighbours initially brushed off the bikers’ presence, saying it made them feel safer, until violence arrived on Jan. 12, 2012, during a battle between the Hells Angels and a London street gang.
Diamond Ialenti, a high-ranking member of the London Hells Angels at the time, and a woman were shot while sitting in a car parked across the street from the suspected clubhouse.
A seriously injured Ialenti, 37 at the time, sped away with his attacker’s vehicle in pursuit, but police watching the area intercepted the shooters’ car and arrested four men, a court later heard.
“Living near an outlaw motorcycle club can affect your safety and decrease your property value,” the RCMP warns on its website.
The listing agent for the Grey Street home declined to speak about its history, citing the privacy of his client.
An agent who was removed from the listing Friday said he was unaware of the home’s past connections to bikers.
It’s unclear whether the house was still being used as a clubhouse prior to its listing last month. There’s no indication that the owners are linked to the Hells Angels.
Biker clubhouses don’t have a history of survival in London, where the Hells Angels and their rivals, the Outlaws motorcycle club, have long competed for dominance.
The OPP’s biker enforcement unit seized a suspected Hells Angels clubhouse on Swinyard Street in 2008. The red and white home was owned by Robert Barletta, the founder of the London Hells Angels chapter, police said at the time. Barletta later denied it was a clubhouse.
In 2002, London police seized the Outlaws motorcycle club’s Egerton Street clubhouse. It was demolished in 2009.
