The luxurious, 18-hectare compound in Maryland being shut down for alleged Russian espionage

On Thursday afternoon, US President Barack Obama’s administration announced its long-awaited retaliation for what has been characterised as Russian interference in November’s presidential election.

Among the wide-ranging measures, the White House announced that the State Department would be closing two Russian-owned compounds - one in Maryland and one in New York - that it says were used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes.

How hidden were these alleged spy compounds? At least in the case of Maryland, the answer is simple: not very.

The compound in Maryland sits on around 18 acres of land at Pioneer Point, a peninsula where the Corsica and Chester rivers merge - around a 90-minute drive from downtown Washington, by the Eastern Shore town of Centreville in Queen Anne’s County.

The site was purchased by the Soviet government in 1972, and became something of a resort for Soviets living in the United States. It is the former estate of John J. Raskob, a former executive for DuPont and General Motors perhaps best known as the builder of the Empire State Building. The Soviets later added to the estate by making a deal with the State Department, which received two properties in Moscow in return.

At the time of its purchase, there was some resistance to the sale of the building to the Soviets, with the local newspaper reporting there were “fears of nuclear submarines surfacing in the Chester River to pick up American secrets and defectors.”