House of ‘Friendship’
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were pals — until a Palm Beach mansion came between them
For the better part of two decades starting in the late 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump swam in the same social pool. They were neighbors in Florida. They jetted from LaGuardia to Palm Beach together. They partied at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and dined at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.
And then, in 2004, they were suddenly rivals, each angling to snag a choice Palm Beach property, an oceanfront estate called Maison de l’Amitie — House of Friendship — that was being sold out of bankruptcy.
Before the auction, Epstein and Trump each tried to work the ref. The trustee in the case, Joseph Luzinski, recalls being lobbied by both camps.
“It was something like Donald saying, ‘You don’t want to do a deal with him, he doesn’t have the money,’ while Epstein was saying: ‘Donald is all talk. He doesn’t have the money,’ ” Luzinski said. “They both really wanted it.”
Only one man would win.
In the wake of Epstein’s arrest last month on sex trafficking charges, many who socialized with him — including Trump — are eager to have it known that they never much liked the man, or weren’t really friends, or barely even knew him.
“I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you,” the president said in the Oval Office the day after New York authorities took Epstein into custody.
But friends and associates said the two wealthy New York-to-Palm Beach commuters had socialized for years, drawn together by a mix of money, women and power.
“They knew each other a long time,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide who said he pressed the candidate about his ties to Epstein in late 2014 as the real estate mogul considered a White House run. “Bottom line, Donald would hang out with Epstein because he was rich.”
Their falling out, Trump said, happened about 15 years ago — several years before Epstein’s conviction on a prostitution solicitation charge.
“I create stars. I’ve really gotten a lot of women great opportunity. Unfortunately, after they’re a star, the fun is over for me. It’s like a creating process. It’s almost like creating a building. It’s pretty sad.”
Trump has not said why their relationship ruptured. “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly,” the president said.
Fifteen years ago, the two men squared off over the Palm Beach mansion. Just a few months later, local police began investigating allegations that Epstein was sexually abusing minors. Trump has also said that he at some point banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.
The White House declined to comment. Epstein’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.
It had been a typical Trump relationship: heavily chronicled in the news media, with an uncertain core beneath the surface.
Photos and articles captured the men together over the years, the future president of the United States and the future convicted sex offender: Epstein and longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, Trump and his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss, double dating at a celebrity tennis tournament at Mar-a-Lago. Partying with Britain’s Prince Andrew. Hanging out with National Football League cheerleaders. Dancing, laughing, palling around at a party Trump threw to celebrate his “freedom” after he divorced his second wife, Marla Maples.
“Terrific guy,” Trump said of Epstein 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with.” in Within two years, two had ended. public sightings of the
Trump and Epstein were more than just neighbors who happened to end up at the same parties. They were two outer-borough New York guys, both with a knack for building their images and making a buck. Both attracted a ton of attention, though Trump worked hard to win notice and Epstein sometimes sought to deflect it. Both won reputations as men who were seen around beautiful women.
In 2016, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten told Fox News that Trump had “no relationship” with Epstein: “They were not friends and they did not socialize together.” Garten declined to comment for this article.
But Epstein, asked in a 2010 deposition if he had ever socialized with Trump, responded: “Yes, sir.”
The Epstein-Trump relationship didn’t exist in isolation but as part of a larger Palm Beach social swirl. In the early years after Trump bought the private Mar-a-Lago estate in 1985, Epstein and Trump were spotted together at Palm Beach events, including a pre-pageant dinner at Mar-aLago in 1992, according to people in attendance.
“They were tight,” said one person who observed them together and requested anonymity to avoid retribution. “They were each other’s wingmen.”
Trump, recently divorced from his first wife, Ivana, was in an on-and-off relationship with the woman he would soon marry, Marla Maples.
During that period, the New York developer, casting himself as a carefree billionaire playboy, hosted and attended parties at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere, sometimes featuring models, cheerleaders and beauty pageant contestants. Trump had a business connection to all three industries.
Since the start of his career, Trump had made his love life a central part of his public image. The idea was to build his brand as an avatar of fabulousness and to extend that brand by attaching beautiful women to his name, he has said.
“I create stars,” he said on ABC’s “Primetime Live” in 1994, adding: “I’ve really gotten a lot of women great opportunity. Unfortunately, after they’re a star, the fun is over for me. It’s like a creating process. It’s almost like creating a building. It’s pretty sad.”
Trump’s parties at Mar-a-Lago often featured models from Miami who floated around the patio and pool, with many more women than men, friends have recounted.
“That’s true,” Trump said in an interview in 2015, stressing he was single at the time. “The point was to have fun. It was wild.”
“There’s 100 beautiful women and 10 guys,” Roger Stone, his longtime adviser, told The Post in 2016. “‘Look, how cool are we?’ ... I mean, it was great.”
Epstein, who in 1990 bought his own place in Palm Beach, two miles north of Trump’s, never became a member of Mar-a-Lago but visited the club for social events, Garten has said. On some of those occasions, Epstein was accompanied by Maxwell.
“Donald liked Epstein,” said Steven Hoffenberg, a Trump acquaintance who was