National Post (National Edition)
FIVE THINGS ABOUT TRUMP’S ESTATE
1 THE OUTSIDER MOVES IN
When Donald Trump bought Mar-a-Lago for $10 million in 1985, he was not greeted warmly by everyone in town. He was seen as brash, nouveau riche and a limelight seeker, not genteel, quiet old money like his neighbours. After the town rejected his plan to subdivide Mar-a-Lago’s grounds and build up to 10 mini-mansions, he converted it into a club in 1995. The property is now believed to be worth more than $100 million.
2 NOT JUST ANY TOWN
Palm Beach has Florida’s 10th highest median household income at $105,700, according to census data. Conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and entertainers Howard Stern and Jimmy Buffett are among the celebrities with homes there. Palm Beach is quiet, and residents like it that way. Earlier this year, the town went to court in a failed attempt to block a planned march by farm workers carrying loudspeakers to the home of Wendy’s chairman Norman Peltz.
3 SPEAKING OF NOISE …
Trump and his neighbours have battled over the years about noise and over a huge U.S. flag and its 80-foot pole that he erected in 2006 without the proper permits. The two sides eventually settled. Trump got his pole, and his foundation gave $100,000 to veterans’ charities.
4 NEW LEVEL OF SECURITY
Trump’s stays will bring road closures and heightened security when the caravan of Secret Service agents, aides, journalists and medical personnel arrives. The community sits on a long, thin barrier island with only three bridges to the mainland.
5 NOT THE FIRST PRESIDENT
John F. Kennedy’s family estate, known during his term as the Winter White House, is 12 kilometres north. In 1960, a would-be assassin planned to kill Kennedy there, using a suicide car bomb. The government will not have to build Trump a bomb shelter. He already has three.