Donald Trump, from president to uncomfortable neighbor in Palm Beach
Florida is a bastion of Trumpism, but in this exclusive corner of the southern state, billionaires fear that the arrival of the former president will break their luxurious tranquility
"He's watching you." He's going down now. You better go.
The gardener warns the journalist that he has crossed a red line and that everything is registered on the security cameras. “Let's keep talking but on the street. What bothers him is that you are here at the entrance. Better get out because he is going to call the police and they are going to take him away. This is private property, ”insists in Spanish the Mexican worker of one of the mansions on the beach in Palm Beach, the new neighbors of Donald Trump.
The street is actually a highway. The sidewalk is also a half-meter strip between the hard shoulder and the first tiles of the house. No fences, no bushes, no gates. Without any signage. They are not necessary because everyone knows that, when in doubt, everything is private in Palm Beach.
"How does the landlord think that Trump now lives here?"
"He's worried about things like this."
The kind of thing that happens when you have a former president around. And more to one like Trump, a megalomaniac character who has spent almost compulsively demanding attention during the four years of his government. A magnet for the curious, fans for or against, journalists, people in general who come to pester one of the most exclusive corners of the world, the playground of the American aristocracy since the late nineteenth century. The Rockefellers, the Carnegies or the Kennedys passed through here.
Trump has decided to leave New York and move to Florida mainly for tax reasons - it is one of the states in which the least taxes are paid in the United States - taking advantage of the fact that since the eighties he has a mansion on the beach on the island of the super-rich . Florida, especially the south, is also a Trumpist stronghold, where he has won both elections. Last Wednesday he was greeted like a hero upon his arrival in Palm Beach, a wealthy county 110 kilometers from Miami.
Hundreds of followers packed the journey of the family caravan to the island. Middle-class women, bikers with patches of the paranoid ultra QAnon movement, white working class who came from other parts of the state: "I have driven almost two hours to be here and support my president," said Mike Reynolds, 52, driver of truck.
Trump fans don't live in the most expensive spot in Florida, where the median home price is $ 7 million ($ 5.7 million), triple that of Miami Beach, according to local realtor Douglas Elliman. The island of Palm Beach is also a refuge for illustrious Democrats such as Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York and declared enemy of Trump. And the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world and also an opponent of the Republican, is looking for a house.
The letter to the intelligence services
The rejection of some neighbors comes from afar. In December they sent a joint letter addressed to both the county and the secret services in which they stated that the former president cannot live in the Mar-a-Lago mansion for legal reasons. In the nineties, the magnate himself changed the deeds of his private residence to a social club. "Palm Beach has many other charming properties, surely you can find one that meets your needs," closes the letter, promoted by the lawyers of the neighbors of the Trumps, the DeMoss, a rich family of evangelical philanthropists.
In 1985, a Donald Trump already millionaire thanks to the businesses of his construction father bought the seven-hectare farm, for 10 million, including the mansion, built in the 1920s by the New York oligarch Marjorie Merriweather Post, once the oldest woman. rich from the United States. The lady of high society hired American architects and European designers who conceived a set of Mediterranean inspiration, with tiles from Cuba and thousands of Spanish tiles. Merriweather Post died in 1973 and in her will ordered Mar-a-Lago to become a winter residence for the presidents of the United States. Her wishes were never fulfilled and his heirs ended up selling the property to Trump, persuaded by his ex-wife Ivana.
In the mid-1990s, at a difficult time for his business, he first tried to tear down the mansion to divide the land and put it up for sale, but the county wouldn't let him. His next move was to turn the property into a private club with tennis courts, a spa, more than 100 rooms and a membership registration fee that is now $ 200,000 (164,521 euros). The Anglo-Saxon patricians of Palm Beach feared an invasion by the nouveau riche and put pressure on the county. This time with no luck.
Trump continued to exasperate his neighbors by raising a 24-meter-high US flag in the garden, which violated height regulations, but above all the discreet taste of his neighbors. The tension was mounting when he became president. His continuous travels to what he called "the White House of the South" collapsed traffic for several blocks around, with roadblocks, beaches, and crowds of onlookers, fans, and journalists.
Just what happened again this Wednesday after his arrival in what will now be his house. Since Tuesday night the vicinity of the mansion had been taken over by the police, with helicopters flying over the area and traffic cuts that on Wednesday reached the bridge that connects the island with the mainland. “It's very uncomfortable because you can't walk or go to the beach. Besides, I can hardly even leave the house because I don't live here, ”explained CK Magalli, 22, a Filipino student of psychology. Her aunt works as an intern cook in one of the mansions within the security perimeter and she recommended to her niece that she not move much these days.
The penultimate controversy of the Mar-a-Lago house came on New Year's Eve. The mansion's ballroom, decorated in the Louis XIV style, hosted a party for more than 500 guests at $ 1,000 per person. In a video uploaded to social networks by the tycoon's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, the crowd is seen without a mask while on stage Vanilla Ice, the white and faded replica of the hip-hop boom in the 90s, sings. The county intervened again with a letter to the property manager where he warned him that a new violation of health regulations would carry a fine of $ 15,000 (12,340 euros).
Local Democratic Rep. Omari Hardy lamented days later: "The permissiveness of the county sends the message that you can skip the rules if you are rich and have good connections." An argument similar to that of journalist Lysandra Ohrstrom, an old friend of Ivanka Trump, classmates at an elite school for girls on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In a tough Vanity Fair article, she definitely turned her back on him for aligning herself with her father's wildest policies with this parting message from the liberal, cosmopolitan New York where they first met: “I hope Ivanka finds a soft landing in Palm Beach, and live where white supremacy is de rigueur and most misdeeds are forgiven if you have enough money. "
