AMERICAN CASTLE

A history of a grand mansion and its numerous occupants.

In the 1920s, writes Shanklin, “across the Sunshine State, the steamy lure of tropical weather, flour-colored beaches, queen palms, orange trees, cheap land, and more cheap land drew hundreds of speculators.” One structure sat on 17 acres behind a low rise that served as a buffer against the region’s frequent hurricanes. That was an important consideration: In 1928, a hurricane “levied the ultimate regressive tax on its victims.” Though the white citizens living in the mansions did fine, hundreds of Black workers brought in to build and maintain the new estates drowned and were either buried in mass graves or burned. Mar-a-Lago was relatively unscathed, though its owner, Marjorie Merriweather Post, complained that the winds had uprooted a number of palm trees. The property wasn’t cheap, but Post wasn’t concerned. The heiress to a fortune built on cereal, she had even more money at her disposal thanks to her marriage to financier E.F. Hutton. So wealthy were they that they went on a 10-week Caribbean cruise while the world staggered through the worst days of the Great Depression. Post eventually turned the keys over to the National Park Service under the aegis of Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, but NPS never had an adequate budget for the place. As such, it was returned to the Post Foundation in 1980 and, in 1986, sold to Donald Trump, who inflated its value and suckered Chase Manhattan Bank into floating 99.97% financing. When creditors suddenly called in $2 billion in notes, Trump developed it into a golf club with a historic easement that “could unlock a trove of tax breaks for Mar-a-Lago’s owner.” In a grifters’ paradise, that seems fitting, though doubtless Post, a major donor to the Democratic Party, wouldn’t be pleased with the current occupants.

A well-told story that’s full of surprises, its storied subject generating headlines for a century.