- The Mar-a-Lago mansion was originally willed to the US government as a summer home for the president.
- When the White House refused it, citing high maintenance costs, Donald Trump purchased the estate.
- Since then, the iconic property has become central to one of the former President’s criminal cases.
The Mar-a-Lago Club has frequently been featured in the news cycle as the property at the heart of Donald Trump’s confidential documents case — but the estate’s political connections date back far futher back than the former president’s embattled administration.
The sprawling estate was first opened in 1927 after its construction was funded by the heiress to the Postum Cereal Company, Marjorie Merriweather Post, NPR reported. Post, a known philanthropist, frequently used the estate to host events for elite members of society in addition to the underprivileged, according to the outlet.
“She also was very keen on ensuring that the underprivileged were invited to events so that they could experience, for example, musical concerts,” journalist Michael Luongo told NPR, adding that the heiress was “very understanding of the importance of her role in society.”
The 20-acre Mar-a-Lago property, meaning “Sea to Lake” in Spanish, is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth. The estate itself is over 37,000 square feet, according to the Mar-a-Lago website.
Smithsonian Magazine reports that the house was “grandiose” even by Palm Beach standards at the time of its construction. At its finish, the house cost $7 million, the equivalent of nearly $100 million in today’s funds, per NPR.
According to Smithsonian Magazine, Post donated the house to the government upon her death, hoping it would serve as a summer lodging for the US president.
After the White House was unwilling to keep up with Mar-a-Lago’s expensive maintenance costs, Trump purchased the property and its furniture in 1985 for only $8 million, according to Town & Country.
Trump used the mansion as his own home for about 10 years, then opened it as a club in 1995. While in office, he referred to the estate as the “Winter White House.”
Since the purchase, the former president has engaged in a number of legal battles over the property with the state of Florida. Town & Country reported that he sued Palm Beach County at least twice, once for “malicious” direction of air traffic over Mar-a-Lago, and another time when he was fined for having an 80-foot flag pole, when the county limit is 42-feet.
The first was resolved when Trump took office, since air traffic could no longer move over Mar-a-Lago when he was in the residence. The second ended in a compromise: Trump agreed to donate $100,000 to veteran’s charities in lieu of paying county fines, and lowered the flagpole to 70-feet.
While in office, Trump used the club as a hub for business meetings and political entertaining, welcoming powerful guests like Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. According to Town & Country, he also authorized a missile strike on Syria from Mar-a-Lago.
According to reporting from The Palm Beach Post, a membership at Mar-a-Lago costs about $200,000 at sign-up, and then about $20,000 annually, though the club is so exclusive that only members know the exact costs.
The estate is central to the case against Trump for his retention of highly-classified government documents. A new superseding indictment accuses Trump and several of his employees of moving documents between locations and in and out of various hiding spaces, like closets and bathrooms, to obscure the number of documents he held.
Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham alleges Trump casually presented some of the documents to guests of the estate.
Tuesday, Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, will preside over Trump’s first pretrial hearing for the case. Trump, facing threats of a third indictment, denies the charges against him and hopes the judge will allow for a delay in the trial until after the 2024 election cycle, Insider previously reported.
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