Donald Trump’s fabled Mar-a-Lago estate has once again hit headlines after The Washington Post reported a 'Covid outbreak' at the Florida private members' club. In an email obtained by the US newspaper, Mar-a-Lago said it was following "all appropriate response measures" in the wake of the purported outbreak. Click or scroll on to find out what happened…
According to BBC News, Mar-a-Lago confirmed in a statement that both the Beach Club and à la carte dining room were closed, but did not specify how many people had tested positive. The Guardian reported that a source close to the club confirmed to Reuters that an undisclosed number of workers had been quarantined “out of an abundance of caution” and that “a section of the club” had also been closed for a short period of time.
Trump has set up his HQ at the Palm Beach retreat since leaving the White House in January. Mar-a-Lago was also where he is thought to have been exposed to the virus more than a year ago when a senior Brazilian official tested positive after spending time at the club. The official in question even posed for a photo next to Trump and attended a family birthday party. Trump, Melania, Barron and multiple White House staff later tested positive for the virus.
A Twitter user caught Donald Trump's surprise appearance at a fundraiser for a dog rescue charity at Mar-a-Lago on March 12, 2021. Organized by his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, the event was well-attended and the video shows multiple people without masks congregated indoors. The former president said that his speech was unplanned and that he had been passing the event and heard screaming, so decided to make an appearance. But that's not the only curious event to have happened on the estate. Read on to discover the fascinating story of Mar-a-Lago, from an empty 80s albatross to the plush private members' club it is today.
Many years before Donald Trump bought it, Mar-a-Lago was the vision of a wealthy heiress, Marjorie Merriweather Post who commissioned the build in the 1920s. Before her death in 1973, she gifted the house to the nation in the hope that it would become the 'Winter White House' presidential retreat. But spiraling maintenance costs saw President Carter hand the estate back to the Post Foundation in 1981. The property was then put on the market for around $20 million – though some sources say $25 million – but potential buyers were not to be found and permission was sought to raze it to the ground.
According to the City Journal, Trump is said to have first heard about Mar-a-Lago from a taxi cab driver during a drive around Palm Beach, and knew there and then that he just had to have it. To the flashy real estate mogul, Post's winter retreat represented the ultimate trophy property. Trump initially offered the Post family $15 million for the estate.
The offer was rejected, so Trump decided to play tough. He purchased a beachfront parcel of land between the estate and ocean for $2 million. According to The Independent, he revealed plans to put a building up that would block the sea view from Mar-a-Lago, thus depreciating its value and putting off rival buyers.
Trump's audacious move had the desired effect. In 1985, the Post family agreed to accept just $8 million for the estate and all its contents. This is a fraction of what Mar-a-Lago cost to build in real terms and what it's estimated to be worth nowadays – Forbes valued the property at $160 million in 2018. The property magnate had landed the real estate bargain of the year, if not the decade.
When the Trump empire ran into financial difficulties in the early 1990s, Donald Trump worked out a way of turning his money-pit estate into a money-making juggernaut – by transforming it into a members' club. To win over the Palm Beach town council and gain permission for his venture, Trump promised to carry out a sensitive restoration of Mar-a-Lago, according to the Palm Beach Post. This would also allow him to claim a massive tax break in the form of a conservation easement.
Trump billed the club as open to all who could afford to sign up, unlike the two most established private members' clubs in Palm Beach, which, shockingly, barred African American, Jewish and LGBTQ+ people from joining. While Trump has been rightly applauded for this inclusive policy, some commentators say his motives were more about making as much money as possible and further ingratiating himself with the town council than anything benevolent. The town eventually granted permission for the club, though with some strings attached, which we will come to later.
Trump shelled out millions on the expensive restoration, which was given a big thumbs up by conservationists, and splurged on a number of additions to the property, including two swimming pools, a beauty salon and a spa, with the lion's share of the money going on a new 20,000-square-foot ballroom in the Louis XIV style. Trump is said to have spent $7 million gilding the palatial space and $100,000 a-piece on the gold basins in the bathrooms.
Trump was furious with Post's daughter, the actress Dina Merrill, after she wrote to the town council objecting to the club. In his book The Art of the Comeback, Trump went on to describe her as an “arrogant and aloof daughter, who was born with her mother’s beauty but not her brains”. Merrill's childhood suite is one of Mar-a-Lago's most fanciful. Inspired by Sleeping Beauty, the fairytale 'Baby House' features a charming silver-plated four-poster bed with squirrel motifs and a fireplace decorated with garlands of plaster roses.
Interestingly, Post had iron bars installed on the windows and placed guards at the door of the Baby House following the Lindbergh kidnapping of 1932 and wouldn't allow her daughter to go anywhere without bodyguards in tow, up until her 18th birthday. In later years, guests including 'Lady Bird' Johnson stayed in the suite, and when Trump acquired the property, his daughter Ivanka got dibs on it, though these days she prefers staying in the Banyan Bungalow on the grounds.
Although the mega-mansion itself, which had gone from 118 to 126 rooms, was restored, some of its contents were sold off at auction and replaced with reproductions. Among the items that Trump offloaded were the jewel-encrusted marble dining table, antique Spanish rug, Louis XIV chests and Venetian glasses worth a thousand dollars each.
The club has welcomed a long list of celebrities over the years, including Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, who spent their honeymoon at Mar-a-Lago. Other stars who visited the club whether for pleasure or to perform at a function include Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, Tiger Woods, Billy Joel, Vanessa Williams, Liza Minnelli and Sylvester Stallone.
Laurence Leamer, author of Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump's Presidential Palace, recounts a story in his definitive book on the estate. In 2000, Trump hired top French chef Bernard Goupy, who wowed Celine Dion when she threw a baby shower at the club. Trump wasn't quite so impressed and fired Goupy not long after, having launched an expletive-packed tirade against his signature dish, a Caesar salad. The chef went on to work for Dion who renamed the dish 'Trump Salad'.
An Associated Press investigation conducted in 2017 found that Mar-a-Lago had been cited for 78 health code violations in the previous three years, with inspectors flagging up a range of issues that included chefs failing to wash their hands, dirty cutting boards, mold growing on the ice machine, as well as serving unsafe seafood and meat that had been improperly refrigerated.
Trump doubled the joining fee from $100,000 to $200,000 after he became president, prompting CNBC to report allegations that he was seeking to profit from his position. Some reports suggest the fee, which was $50,000 back when the club opened in the 1990s, is now $250,000. Members are also required to stump up yearly membership dues of $14,000 and spend a minimum of $2,000 per annum on food.
Trump visited the property 32 times during his presidency, spending a total of 142 days there. Mar-a-Lago was used for important government business and hosted meetings with world leaders, including China's Xi Jinping and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. But these trips didn't come cheap with four sojourns costing a whopping $13.6 million or an average of $3.4 million each.
The number of members is estimated at almost 500 and, contrary to what you might think, the list isn't completely dominated by MAGA Republicans. They do make up a significant proportion, though, including several who were nominated by Trump for ambassador posts. The most notable left-leaning member, Democratic Party power broker George Norcross, recently gave up his membership.
The council's attorney, Skip Randolph was reviewing Trump's permanent residency but the matter easily passed in a recent town council meeting, according to reports in The Guardian. Having fought a succession of battles with the local authorities, Trump, who has taken legal action against the council on several occasions, isn't afraid of a scrap. But Randolph said there was nothing in the club’s 1993 agreement with Palm Beach that to say Trump can't live there. “This is a debate that I really think is silly,” he said.
In an interview promoting his book Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago and the Rise of America's Xanadu, writer Les Standiford mentioned that some people insist the ghost of Marjorie Merriweather-Post roams Mar-a-Lago's corridors. What Post would have thought of Trump is anyone's guess and although her daughter wasn't a fan, the scion's granddaughter Marjorie Post Dye praised him for preserving the property.
Pictured here from the outside, the owner's suite contains the aforementioned Versailles Master Bedroom, an additional bedroom, the Pine Hall and the Louis XV hall, living rooms, bathrooms and offices. As well as searching for a school for Barron Trump and setting up an office at Mar-a-Lago to continue her 'Be Best' campaign, Melania Trump prepared for the family's move by overseeing the suite's expansion and revamp, opting for copious dark wood and white marble.
Since Trump stepped down as president, the mood at the club is rumored to have become decidedly 'sad' and somber. Many of the members, who were appalled by the head-honcho's role in the storming of the Capitol and have become fed up with the mediocre food, are reportedly leaving in their droves. Author Laurence Leamer told MSNBC host Alex Witt that "it's a very dispirited place".
Working with her favorite interior designer, Tham Kannalikham, Melania updated some of the private quarters in her own modern aesthetic. According to a report by CNN, Donald Trump is said to have hit the roof when he saw the makeover. He reportedly ordered the immediate removal of the wood and marble. Here's how the master bedroom looked in the 1990s.
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