No, Mr Resident: why Trump is not wanted at his own Florida resort
When he was forced out of the White House in January, Donald Trump thought he had left elections behind, for another four years at least. But one month on, having relocated to Mar-a-lago, his private club in the wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Mr Trump faces another vote that could affect his future.
The former president’s neighbours on the southern Florida barrier island, who are usually known for settling disputes discreetly, are orchestrating a public campaign to bar him from living in his Mar-a-lago club. Many plan to let their once-coveted club memberships lapse.
Some of them are now eyeing a local council election in March, when a new mayor and two new council members will be installed who may be more sympathetic to their cause.
Many neighbours say Mr Trump’s residency breaks an agreement he struck with Palm Beach in the Nineties. When he transformed the beachfront mansion from a private home into a members’ club he assured the town he would not live on the estate. But Mr Trump appears to have found a loophole in the agreement – claiming that as president of the club, he is technically a member of staff and exempt from the residency restriction.
Councillors are currently reluctant to pick a fight with a man as litigious as Mr Trump, but some locals hope an overhaul in the town’s management could alter their stance.
One Palm Beach homeowner who has joined the fight against Mr Trump is Glenn Zeitz, a prominent lawyer who has owned a property on the island since 2005.
Mr Zeitz told The Daily Telegraph his concern was that if the town made an exception for Mr Trump it would “open the floodgates” to other club owners. Palm
Beach is a town full of “the haves and the have mores”, Mr Zeitz joked.
“They’re used to having their own way, and if you do it for one person then it establishes precedent,” he said.
Mr Zeitz, who spent six years locked in litigation with Mr Trump and his Atlantic City casino expansion in the Nineties, says he is well aware the former president “plays hardball”. But he believes some Palm Beach residents may still object to Mr Trump’s residency in Mar-a-lago in April, when the issue is next given a public airing.
Laurence Leamer, a longtime Palm Beach resident who has written a book on Mar-a-lago, agrees that Mr Trump’s habit of violating local ordinances and launching legal action has not endeared him to his neighbours.
“That’s not the Palm Beach way, this is an overly civilised place if anything, where people settle disputes in a very kind of sedate way,” he said.
Mr Trump’s presence is no longer as obtrusive as it once was. Where once a small army of Secret Service agents blockaded the road leading up to the former president’s club, a steady stream of sports cars and fourwheel drives are now free to pass right by the resort’s entrance.
Just a single guard can now be spotted standing watch outside.
Insiders say Mr Trump’s
new daily routine has not varied much since he settled permanently in Palm Beach. He rarely quits the private sphere of his club, dining at Mar-alago most evenings and rarely straying further than his nearby golf club.
Mar-a-lago has also become Mr Trump’s base for plotting his future in US politics. With the former president still commanding sway over the party faithful, senior Republicans have travelled to Mar-a-lago in recent weeks to dine with their former leader and secure his support.
“Florida will be the headquarters of the ‘Maga’ [Make America Great Again] universe as long as Trump lives in Mar-a-lago,” said Dave Aronberg, the Democrat state attorney for Palm Beach.
But Mr Aronberg said Mr Trump still faced a number of “threats” as he settled into his post-presidency life, citing a criminal investigation into his taxes in New York and a probe into his attempts to influence the Georgia election results.
“There is nothing certain with all those things going on as to where he’ll be living in the future,” he said.
But back in Palm Beach, Mr Trump’s lawyer John Marion, has defended the former president’s right to live at Mar-a-lago.
He has also cautioned those who sought to oust Mr Trump, suggesting that “on the remote possibility they were somehow successful in preventing him from living” at Mar-a-lago, Mr Trump could cause more problems for his neighbours by choosing to move to “where they live and where he owns several homes”.