Trump pays off 2nd home next to Mar-a-Lago
President Donald Trump has paid off the mortgage on the second of two homes he owns on the northern boundary of his opulent estate and private Mara-Lago Club.
Trump bought both of the homes in 1993: In November of that year, he paid $1.6 million for an oceanfront home on the corner of Woodbridge Road and South Ocean Boulevard. The home had four bedrooms, 4½ bathrooms, a pool, marble floors, a cabana and a two-bedroom guest house.
Trump took out a $1.2 million adjustable-rate mortgage with a starting interest rate of 4.75 percent. The final payment was due in January 2019 but Trump retired the mortgage in June.
In December 1993, he bought the 4,072-square-foot home next door on Woodbridge Road for $700,000. He took out a $525,000 adjustable-rate mortgage with a starting interest rate of 5 percent. Like the other property, the final payment was due in January 2019. Trump paid off that mortgage on Oct. 23.
When Trump bought the homes in 1993, the Town Council was leery of Trump’s intentions for Mar-a-Lago.
Mired in debt and facing foreclosure on Mar-a-Lago and other businesses, Trump approached the council in 1992 with a plan to subdivide the 18-acre property and build mini-mansions on them. The council rejected the plan, partly because he didn’t have an adequate plan to preserve the mansion. He promptly sued the town.
In early 1993, he came back before the council with another plan: convert Mar-a-Lago into a private club. Again, the proposal faced intense criticism and scrutiny. Among the concerns, homeowners along Woodbridge Road worried that traffic and noise would be a problem. After months of meetings, the council finally approved Trump’s plan, provided he follow through on a commitment to preserve Mar-a-Lago.
When word got out that Trump intended to buy two homes on Woodbridge Road, suspicions flared again.
“The phone has been ringing all morning,” Palm Beach Councilwoman Lesly Smith told a reporter in 1993. “They’re concerned that this will be an extension for the use of Mar-a-Lago as a club.” Smith said any plans to turn the two homes on Woodbridge Road just north of Mara-Lago into anything other than private residences would have to be approved by the town.
Trump did not own the properties personally when he paid them off.
Two and one-half weeks before Trump’s inauguration, then President-elect Trump created two companies with his son Eric: DTW Venture LLC and DT Venture 1 LLC.
On Jan. 17 — three days before Trump was sworn in as president — he deeded the oceanfront home on the corner of Woodbridge Road to DT Venture 1 LLC and the home next door to DTW Venture LLC.