When President Trump huddled with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, he was helping fulfill a plan decades in the making. Built by cereal heiress and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1927, the property was supposed to become a “Winter White House” upon her death. Presidents Nixon and Kennedy even spent time there.
But the upkeep proved too expensive, and the property returned to private hands, eventually ending up as a private club run by Donald Trump. Now, things have come full circle. See photographs from inside the “Winter White House.” Mar-a-Lago is perhaps best known today as Donald J. Trump’s Palm Beach home and resort-style private club, but its design story harkens back to the 1920s, when a notable heiress dreamed up a European-style estate of epic proportions.
