--- description: The estate, now a club owned by President Trump, was deeded to the government for presidential use in the 1970s, but that didn't work out. title: Donald Trump and Mar-a-Lago's Complicated Presidential Past image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7818a60ac304e7a2/6988b92a8e0601af6b4691ae/trump1.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [politics](/tag/politics/) ## politics Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # The Mar-a-Lago Club Was a ‘Winter White House’ Even Before President Trump Got There  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 16, 2017 2:00 PM CUT  A scene from inside Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate, during a benefit event in 1995. A scene from inside Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate, during a benefit event in 1995.Ron Galella—WireImage / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 16, 2017 2:00 PM CUT As Zeke J. Miller [explores in a feature in this week’s issue of TIME](http://time.com/4672984/donald-trump-mar-a-lago/ "undefined"), the story of President Trump’s “Winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., is a complicated one. But while Trump’s use of the club may present new challenges, the current President isn’t the first to see the exclusive enclave as a fitting retreat from Washington, D.C. It was almost exactly 90 years ago, in early 1927, that the cereal heiress and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post and her second husband Edward Hutton celebrated the completion of their new estate in Palm Beach. They named the place after its waterside location: Mar-a-Lago. “Marjorie said she was going to build a little cottage by the sea,” Hutton was often [heard](https://books.google.com/books?id=ja3b%5FV1yVv0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=mar-a-lago+and+8+million+and+1927&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRp42ytpDSAhWH0iYKHQw3CcUQ6AEIJDAC#v=snippet&q=mar-a-lago&f=false "undefined") to remark. “Look what we got!” As TIME [explained](http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-02-03/page/54/ "undefined") 40 years later, as Post remained one of the most important and most respected figures in the social scenes of several cities, she had turned the “115-room Spanish ‘cottage’ in Palm Beach” into a place known for “exquisite” hospitality, which was given an additional sheen of importance when John F. Kennedy—whose family had long wintered in Palm Beach—spent a few Christmas vacations in the area during his presidency. (The exact number of rooms has changed over time.) The place [became](http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/fedreg/fr034/fr034016/fr034016.pdf "undefined") a National Historic Site in 1969. Post was [famous](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-09-24/page/30/ "undefined") for treating guests well, offering a full day’s worth of activities, brand new movies screened every night and, on one occasion, a special show from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus. And so, given her wide experience as host and guest, it is perhaps unsurprising that she [came to feel](http://www.nytimes.com/1972/10/22/archives/a-palm-beach-guest-house-for-presidents-and-kings.html "undefined") that it was a shame that the United States did not have an appropriate place to lodge visiting dignitaries outside Washington, D.C., or for Presidents to relax during the winter. She decided that, upon her death, Mar-a-Lago would become the perfect solution to that problem. In 1972, after she agreed to include a fund for the upkeep of the place, that plan became official, as TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-11-13/page/30/ "undefined") when Post’s decision to donate the place to the U.S. government got Congressional [approval](https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-86/pdf/STATUTE-86-Pg1049.pdf "undefined"): --- > “” --- Though there was no question that the gift was a large one, the magazine noted that it “seems designed to make the isolation of the presidency a bit more splendid than it ought to be” and suggested that, if he were going to spend time at Mar-a-Lago, a President ought perhaps to also spend “at least a few weekends a year in a trailer camp or a slum, or sleeping on a relative’s Hide-a-Bed in East Lansing.” (One reader [responded](http://time.com/vault/issue/1972-12-04/page/8/ "undefined") to the article to propose that it should go vice versa too: every American who lives “in a slum or a trailer park or sleeps in relatives’ Hide-a-Beds during the year” should be entitled to a weekend spent there in the lap of luxury.) ### See Inside the Winter White House  Sunlight illuminates part of a coat of arms at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 28, 2016. Jonathan Ernst—Reuters  The main living room in Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., March 4, 2016\. The club was built by the cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who sold it to Trump in 1985. Eric Thayer—The New York Times/Redux  The main living room in Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., March 4, 2016. Eric Thayer—The New York Times/Redux  A table setting in the main living room inside Mar-a-Lago on April 11, 2009. Chris Salata—The Palm Beach Post/ZUMA PRESS  A 1927 Steinway baby grand piano in the living room of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on March 4, 2016. Eric Thayer—The New York Times/Redux  A portrait of Donald Trump hangs in the bar at the Mar-a-Lago estate on March 4, 2016. Eric Thayer—The New York Times/Redux  Lightning flashes in the sky over Mar-a-Lago on July 30, 2015. Greg Lovett—The Palm Beach Post/Newscom When Post died the following year, the provision kicked in. Though Richard Nixon [paid a surprise visit](http://www.nytimes.com/1974/07/08/archives/nixon-inspects-palm-beach-estate-willed-to-us.html "undefined") to check it out, before long it was clear that, without Post, Mar-a-Lago had gone from being the jewel of Palm Beach society—home to [10,000 potted plants](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-09-24/page/30/ "undefined")—to a veritable white elephant. Few officials had made use of the presidential retreat, as its grounds fell into disrepair. Despite the additional annual $100,000 put forward by Congress [starting](http://time.com/vault/issue/1980-08-18/page/71/ "undefined") in 1980 and the funds provided by Post’s will, maintaining the place was an enormous onus that the federal government could ill afford, and [eventually](http://time.com/vault/issue/1981-03-09/page/63/ "undefined") the 1972 order was [repealed](https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title16/html/USCODE-2011-title16-chap1A-subchapI-sec467a.htm "undefined") and the estate was deeded back to the Post Foundation. Subsequently, in 1986, the Foundation [sold](http://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/02/us/post-foundation-sells-its-mansion-to-trump.html "undefined") the property to Donald Trump. By 1990, however,[ in dire personal financial straits](http://time.com/vault/issue/1990-06-18/page/68/ "undefined"), Trump was reported to be offering the place in the neighborhood of $30 million. It didn’t sell, and a subsequent plan to divide the estate into smaller parcels was [resisted](http://time.com/vault/issue/1991-06-03/page/19/ "undefined") by town officials, leading to a dust-up after Trump [made an unfounded claim](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/26/nyregion/unification-church-insists-trump-apologize.html "undefined") that the Unification Church of America would buy the property if he couldn’t split it up. Finally, in 1993 he was granted [approval](http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/05/style/chronicle-902893.html "undefined") to turn the home into a private club, which it remains to this day. In 1999, when he made news for forming a presidential exploratory committee — the first step toward running for President — he found that owning Mar-a-Lago wasn’t such a burden anymore. “He boasts that he already owns the southern White House, which means he won’t be mooching off rich friends on Martha’s Vineyard,” TIME’s Margaret Carlson [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1999-10-18/page/74/ "undefined"), when he explained that he knew that Mar-a-Lago had been “willed to the government to be used by Presidents.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4661763/mar-a-lago-donald-trump-marjorie-post/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4661763/mar-a-lago-donald-trump-marjorie-post/"},"headline":"The Mar-a-Lago Club Was a ‘Winter White House’ Even Before President Trump Got There","datePublished":"2017-02-16T14:00:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:06.245Z","description":"The estate, now a club owned by President Trump, was a flop as an official presidential retreat","url":"https://time.com/4661763/mar-a-lago-donald-trump-marjorie-post/","keywords":["politics","real estate","Florida","Donald Trump","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7818a60ac304e7a2/6988b92a8e0601af6b4691ae/trump1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7818a60ac304e7a2/6988b92a8e0601af6b4691ae/trump1.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mar a Lago","caption":"Benefit For The Salvation Army","creditText":"Ron Galella—WireImage / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4661763/mar-a-lago-donald-trump-marjorie-post/","name":"The Mar-a-Lago Club Was a ‘Winter White House’ Even Before President Trump Got There"}}]}] ```