President Nixon toured Mar-a-Lago. Then he resigned a month later.
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President Richard Nixon toured Mar-a-Lago on an impromptu visit in the summer of 1974. That was a month before he resigned the presidency – which happened 48 years ago today on Aug. 9, 1974.
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At the time, the former estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post was in the possession of the U.S. government, which had inherited the property from the General Foods heiress. Post had hoped the sprawling estate would become a sort of southern Camp David.
That, according to White House records from 1974, was the reason for Nixon's brief visit. The entry in Nixon's daily diary for that date, July 7, 1974, said the president "looked over the property to determine its potential for possible use by U.S. presidents for visiting foreign dignitaries."
Nixon, the 37th president, flew to Mar-a-Lago via helicopter from his Key Biscayne residence in Miami. It was a quick tour — the daily diary states Nixon was at Mar-a-Lago for just 31 minutes. He was accompanied by his longtime friend and confidant Charles "Bebe" Rebozo, a Miami banker
Among the few eyewitnesses to the visit was James Griffin, a Lake Clarke Shores resident. Griffin's father was the previous supervisor of the 17-acre estate, and James Griffin took over the role in the 1950s.
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In 2004, James Griffin, who ran the estate until 1993, told Palm Beach Post reporter Eliot Kleinberg that Nixon and his entourage arrived on two helicopters. The aircrafts came up the Intracoastal Waterway from the south and landed on the golf course — a move that violated a ban on helicopters landing on the island, Griffin said.
Griffin added that the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, Palm Beach Police Department and the U.S. Coast Guard weren't happy about having received only hours' notice of Nixon's visit. "But it was something he decided to do on the spur of the moment," Griffin recalled in the 2004 interview.
"He was very pleasant and thought the place was marvelous, but didn't indicate one way or another whether he'd want to use it," Griffin said.
Nixon would not get to decide. A month later, on Aug. 9, 1974, Nixon resigned the presidency following his impeachment in the Watergate scandal.
Thereafter, Mar-a-Lago's fate remained in the hands of the U.S. government.
Post, who first offered the property to the feds for a presidential retreat in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, willed the property to the U.S. government in 1973. The Carter administration handed it back to the Post estate in 1980, however.
It then languished until 1985 when New York real estate tycoon Donald Trump paid $15 million for the property. Trump redeveloped it as a private club in 1995.
Today, Post's vision of her palatial manor as a presidential enclave has become reality. President Trump refers to Mar-a-Lago as the Southern White House. Since becoming the 45th president, Trump has hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, twice, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, once, at summits at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump is currently wrapping up his 20th visit to Mar-a-Lago as commander-in-chief this Presidents' Day holiday.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Richard Nixon toured Mar-a-Lago a month before he resigned presidency
