Mar-a-Lago’s Destiny as Trump’s Presidential Retreat

Donald Trump’s Presidency, whatever else it may be, can be viewed as the fulfillment of a dying wish of Marjorie Merriweather Post, who was the daughter of the founder of the cornflake company that evolved into General Foods, the second wife of the financier E. F. Hutton (her second husband), and one of the wealthiest Americans ever. In the mid-nineteen-twenties, during her marriage to Hutton, she built a hundred-plus-room retreat, in Palm Beach, Florida, and named it Mar-a-Lago. She left it to the United States when she died, in 1973, but the world’s richest country couldn’t afford the upkeep and eventually returned it to her foundation. In 1985, it was sold, along with its remaining furnishings, to Donald Trump, at a price that is said to have been less than ten million dollars. Post’s idea, in making her bequest, had been that Mar-a-Lago could serve as a retreat for Presidents—and with Trump in the White House her desire will presumably be at least partially fulfilled.