22 Things About Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago
Much like his bid for 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump’s road to acquiring and maintaining Mar-a-Lago, his infamous private club in Palm Beach, Florida, was one hell of a ride. Consistently in the headlines since the 1980s, the private club made news once again early January when it was discovered its 2017 initiation fee doubled following the election - from $100,000 to $200,000. But what’s another $100,000 to enjoy the amenities of a club that the president’s family owns and frequents?
Here’s what you need to know about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago:
1. Trump wasn’t the first person to own Mar-a-Lago.
The 128-room Palm Beach mansion - "mar a lago" is Spanish for “sea to lake” - was conceived by heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post who inherited $250 million at 27 from her father, Charles William Post, owner of Postum Cereal Company. The mansion was built between 1924 and 1927, at a cost of $7 million. (Given inflation, that's roughly equivalent to $93.5 million today.)
2. Trump also wasn’t the first person who wanted to make the estate a “Winter White House.”
At her passing in 1973, Post willed the mansion to the government, intending for her estate to serve as a retreat for political elites. It was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1980, but the government returned the house to the Post’s daughters that same year when the $1 million annual upkeep of the estate became too much. The sisters soon decided to auction off the giant mansion. Enter real estate mogul Donald Trump.
3. Trump engaged in a bitter battle with the Post daughters for the estate.
According to Trump, he initially offered $28 million to the Post sisters but was turned down. Guess how he responded? Badly! Trump then decided to purchase the beachfront property right in front of the estate and threatened to build an ugly home to block the Mar-a-Lago’s oceanfront view. “That drove everybody nuts,” he said. “They couldn’t sell the big house because I owned the beach, so the price kept going down and down.” Trump eventually purchased the Mar-a-Lago for $5 million and paid an additional $3 million for Marjorie Post’s antiques and furnishings.
4. Trump used claims of racism and xenophobia to get the restrictions on his club lifted.
When Trump wanted to transform the property into a private club in the 1990s, local Palm Beach residents were opposed to it, and the town council handed down restrictions on membership, party attendance, etc.
Trump’s lawyers then sent every member of the town council copies of A Gentleman’s Agreement, a movie about a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to expose anti-Semitism, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, another movie about a white couple’s reaction to their daughter bringing home a black fiancé. The movies were to push Trump’s claims that local officials accepted private clubs that excluded Jews and blacks, but imposed tough restrictions on his “inclusive one.” Trump later used this to bolster his claims on Good Morning America that “there’s nobody that’s done so much for equality” as he has.
5. Trump claims his dealings with Mar-a-Lago offer a lesson on how to run the United States.
Trump has claimed that, despite his lack of political experience, his negotiations with Palm Beach for Mar-a-Lago offer the U.S. a lesson how it “should be negotiating with Iran, with China, with India and with Japan and everybody else.”
6. The Palm Beach town council that once pushed back against Trump is now fairly silent.
A resident told Vanity Fair, "Everyone is lining up to kiss the ring. People are pissed off about what his comings and goings will do to the traffic here. But the fact is, against every pundit and the odds, he is the most important man in the world.”
7. Aside from the $200,000 initiation fee, the club has an annual fee of $14,000, and an additional $2,000 fee for food.
According to the club’s managing director and executive vice president Bernd Lembcke, prospective members are required to meet with executives and managers of the club - and that Trump himself must sign the approved application. Lembcke said the club is nearing its cap of 500 members.
8. The club has some seriously over-the-top amenities.
An oceanfront swimming pool, spa and salon, six tennis courts, a croquet court, two ballrooms, and seaside cabanas are just some of the many amenities the private club offers to its members. In 2008, after receiving the Five Star Diamond Award since 1998, the club finally earned the Six Star Diamond Award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences.
9. The club’s decor is just as ostentatious.
Trump inherited much of Post’s original decor, including imported stone from Genoa, Italy, and 16th-century Flemish tapestries - which eventually faded when Trump filled the room with sunlight. Trump built a 20,000 square-foot-ballroom with $7 million in gold leaf and four gold-plated sinks worth $100,000. There was also the club’s "library, paneled with centuries-old British oak and filled with rare first-edition books that no one in the family ever read,” according to Anthony Senecal, Trump’s former butler. LOL, reading!
10. Speaking of Trump’s former butler, he reportedly called for President Barack Obama to be killed.
After Mother Jones unearthed posts on Facebook made by Senecal, who served as Trump’s butler for 17 years, reportedly calling for Obama’s death, Senecal was briefly questioned by the Secret Service. Statements made by the former butler, who’d once posted Obama “needs to be hung for treason,” are “totally disavowed by Trump and the Trump Organization,” according to Trump’s Facebook page. “They are disgusting. Mr. Senecal is obviously a very troubled man.”
11. People writer Natasha Stoynoff claimed to have been sexually assaulted by Trump while at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.
In December 2005, around the time of Trump’s infamous conversation with Billy Bush, Stoynoff traveled to Palm Beach to interview Trump and his new wife, Melania. Stoynoff claimed that right before the interview, Trump cornered her and forcibly kissed her, then asserted that they were going to have an affair. Trump vehemently denies the incident, calling it a “fabricated story.”
12. Trump will once again hire foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump received approval from the U.S. Department of Labor in October to hire 64 foreign workers through the H-2B visa program, which allows eligible U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals to fill temporary jobs (in this case, for Mar-a-Lago's winter season). Trump hired 69 foreign workers the previous year. He will hire 19 cooks at $12.74 an hour, 30 waiters and waitresses at $11.13 an hour, and 15 housekeepers at $10.17 an hour. "It's very, very hard to get people," Trump said when asked about it at the March presidential debate, "Other hotels do the exact same thing."
13. Céline Dion, Billy Joel, and Diana Ross are among those who've sung at concerts at the club.
Concerts took place in a 10,000 square-foot tent (later replaced by the 20,000-square-foot Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom) on the Mar-a-Lago’s front lawn. “The tent wasn’t a good noise container,” Leslie Shaw, a former member of the Town Council, told Vanity Fair. “And you would have limos coming from Fort Lauderdale and Miami and friends flying in from all over.”
14. Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson spent their honeymoon at the club.
The couple was just one of many celebrities to visit the club in the 1990s and early 2000s. (According to the club’s membership director, in 1994, Steven Spielberg, Denzel Washington, and Elizabeth Taylor were members.) The club membership director also claimed that Princess Diana and Prince Charles, then separated, “each filed their own application and paid their own $50,000 initiation fee.” Trump later admitted, however, that he had merely sent the royal couple and other celebrities offers for free honorary memberships. Many, if not all, declined membership, according to media reports at the time.
15. And, wait for it, Jennifer Lopez and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs were once reportedly spotted at Mar-a-Lago having sex on a beach chair.
The couple visited the club on Easter Sunday weekend in 1998 and were spotted by Palm Beach Daily News columnist Shannon Donnelly on a beach chair beneath the Bath and Tennis Club’s picture windows having what Donnelly would later call the “Horizontal Rumba.” “They crawled into one of the Bath and Tennis chairs and were doing the big nasty right beneath the Bath and Tennis’s picture windows with all of the grandmothers having lunch with their grandchildren,” Donnelly said.
16. Many of Trump’s political rivals have attended Mar-a-Lago events.
Hillary Clinton attended Trump’s wedding to Melania Trump in 2005 at the private club. Ted Cruz, Chris Christie and Ben Carson have all attended various functions at Mar-a-Lago as well.
17. Guests paid a little more than $500 to attend this year’s annual Mar-a-Lago’s New Year’s Eve gala.
Trump celebrated this past Christmas and New Year’s Eve at the Mar-a-Lago, as he does in past years. The ticket price for this year’s New Year’s Eve gala generated some controversy for the then-president-elect, given that it's not hard to argue this constitutes paying for access to the president. Trump’s aides rejected the questions.
18. Casey Anthony came out of hiding to protest Trump at the Mar-a-Lago.
Since being acquitted on charges of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Casey "Tot Mom" Anthony has largely stayed out of the spotlight. She reportedly reappeared at the “March Mar-a-Lago,” an anti-Trump protest organized by South Florida Activism and Women's March Florida PBC. Though she declined to be on camera, Anthony, a Palm Beach resident, told WPTV that she is against Trump’s policies.
19. Trump possibly discussed sensitive national security information in the Mar-a-Lago public dining room.
Images posted to Facebook show Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sitting together in the public dining room moments before the two addressed the latest North Korean missile test, according to CBS News. In the images, you can see Trump on a phone and the two reading information by a camera light.
Mar-a-Lago club member Richard DeAgazio, who posted the photos to Facebook, wrote: "HOLY MOLY !!! It was fascinating to watch the flurry of activity at dinner when the news came that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of Japan. The Prime Minister Abe of Japan huddles with his staff and the President is on the phone with Washington DC. the two world leaders then conferred and then went into another room for hastily arranged press conference. Wow.....the center of the action!!!”
Since then, officials have questioned whether Trump was discussing sensitive national security information out in public. According to CBS, the White House has said the two were discussing a press conference about the test.
20. Trump dropped in on a wedding at Mar-a-Lago.
After the aforementioned dinner, CNN reported that Trump stopped by a wedding reception at the Mar-a-Lago's Grand Ballroom. He took a photo with the bride and bridesmaids and grabbed the microphone.
21. The club's kitchen received 13 violations during its latest inspection.
This January, Florida restaurant inspectors found various violations in the kitchen at Mar-a-Lago, though they ultimately decided it met the minimum standards, according to the Miami Herald.
Three of the 13 violations were "high priority,” which mean they could lead to the presence of illness-causing bacteria. One of the violations stated that while raw meats are supposed to be stored at 41 degrees, two of the coolers in the Mar-a-Lago kitchen were storing chicken at 49 degrees, duck and raw beef at 50 degrees, and ham at 57 degrees.
The club was also told that it doesn't maintain its coolers in proper working order and was asked to empty and repair them immediately.
22. Hackers can access the Mar-a-Lago Wi-Fi in less than five minutes.
Hackers reported that they were able to access three weakly encrypted Wi-Fi networks at Mar-A-Lago in less than five minutes. The three tech journalists wrote about their experiment for Gizmodo. Describing their efforts, they wrote:
[We] parked a 17-foot motor boat in a lagoon about 800 feet from the back lawn of the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, and pointed a two-foot wireless antenna that resembled a potato gun toward the club. Within a minute, we spotted there weakly encrypted Wi-Fi networks. We could have hacked them in less than five minutes, but we refrained.
These vulnerabilities could allow for advanced attackers to take over computers and smart phones in the area and record conversations. This is especially important, as it’s been reported that Trump discussed sensitive information out in the open at the club.
The hackers also found two open Wi-Fi networks at the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, as well as weak and open W-Fi networks, and “unencrypted login pages to back-end databases containing sensitive information” at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C.
You Might Also Like
