BeulalandBlog

The Winter White House:

The President's weekend getaway home in Palm Beach, Florida, is valued at an eye-watering $200 million

Donald Trump's 'Winter White House', Mar-a-Lago, stretches across 20 acres and is valued at around $200 million. It has been described as a 'billionaire's playground'

The 20,000 sq ft ballroom has walls inlaid with $7 million worth of gold leaf, there are gold-plated basins in the Ladies and a library panelled with ancient English oak, its rare books as untouched as the day they were put there.

Valued at $200 million and set in 20 acres on the billionaire's playground of Palm Beach in Florida, the Jazz Age chateau was built by a breakfast cereal heiress who left it to the nation as a winter get-away for U.S. Presidents.

Golden wonder: Workers used up America's entire gold leaf supply to gild the main living room, with its 42ft high ceiling

Presidents never used it, perhaps sensing that its almost obscene opulence might not go down well with voters?

Instead, they opted for the far more basic Camp David, a rural getaway outside Washington that Sir Winston Churchill witheringly described as ‘a log cabin with all modern improvements’.

But then Mar-a-Lago was bought by Mr Trump . . . and the rest was somewhat inevitable. The U.S. President has dubbed this pleasure palace — part Trump family home, part jaw-droppingly expensive private members club — the ‘Winter White House’.

Since then — in what may be a hint that he intends to come here all year round — Trump officials have started calling it the ‘Southern White House’.

One of the corridors at the property in Palm Beach, Florida, again with a heavily gold theme

The 110,00 sq ft Mediterranean-themed mansion was built in the Twenties by Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to a breakfast cereal empire, at a cost in today’s money of nearly $94 million.

She lavished vast sums on the estate (Spanish for ‘Sea-to-Lake’), bringing in a famous Viennese theatre designer, stone from Genoa, 36,000 antique Spanish tiles and 16th-century Flemish tapestries.

Workers used up America’s entire stock of gold leaf to gild the main living room with its 42ft high ceiling.

It had 128 rooms including 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms, a ballroom, theatre and golf course.

Ms Post left it to the government on her death in 1973 but, costing $1 million a year to maintain, it was later handed back to her daughters.

The smell of mildew and neglect was hanging over the estate by the time Mr Trump and first wife, Ivana, bought it in 1985 for a knockdown $8 million (with furnishings).

He got it so cheap after claiming (incorrectly) that he had bought a neighbouring beachfront property on which he threatened to build an eyesore house that would block Mar-a-Lago’s ocean view.

‘That drove everybody nuts,’ he boasted later. ‘They couldn’t sell the big house because I owned the beach, and so the price kept going down and down.’

Palm Beach’s snootiest ‘Old Money’ club, the Bath & Tennis, reportedly refused to offer the Trumps membership, a slight that some believe fuelled his decision, when strapped for cash in 1995, to turn Mar-a-Lago into a club of his own.

This photo wastaken back in 1993, just after the millionaire businessman finished a major restoration.

Melania Trump poses during a photo shoot at Mar-a-Lago on March 26, 2011

Trump has inevitably put his mark on Mar-a-Lago, making it bigger, grander and much, much golder. The vast ‘Donald J. Trump Dining Room’ was unveiled in 2005 and, dripping in vast chandeliers.

There's Daddy: Melania Trump and Barron Trump pose during a photo shoot at Mar-a-Lago. Barron points up at Trump's private jet as they take a stroll by the pool

Cooling off: In the same photo shoot, Barron casually eats an ice cream cone as he sits in Melania's lap

When Trump recently took the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe for a round of golf on his Palm Beach course, the White House press corps — who follow the President everywhere — weren’t allowed to watch. But Mar-a-Lago guests got a front-row seat when, later that weekend, the two leaders learned that North Korea had fired a ballistic missile into the sea off Japan.

The pair were dining on the resort’s patio when the news broke. Guests snapped photos posted on social media of worried U.S. and Japanese officials huddled over laptops as they co-ordinated their response.