• Built in the 1920s, Mar-a-Lago has belonged to America's richest woman, the government, and Trump.
• Since Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985, it has been central to financial and legal controversies.
• Here's the lowdown on the estate's history, value, and future in the MAGA orbit.

Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Donald Trump's Palm Beach resort, sits at the center of MAGA political life, serving as the home to lucrative fundraisers, political meetings, and even FBI raids.

The sprawling estate, however, long predates Trump's rise and stretches all the way back to early 20th century America. From its days as a cereal heiress' home to its current iteration as de-facto political headquarters, the property has generated intrigue and controversy, particularly among the nation's elite.

Mar-a-Lago history

In 1924, Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heiress to her father's cereal fortune and the country's richest woman at the time, bought a property in Palm Beach, Florida. Three years of construction later, she opened Mar-a-Lago, which translates to "sea to lake." The 20-acre club, nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth, cost about $7 million to build, equivalent to about $100 million today.

The sprawling estate was constructed in the image of Mediterranean coastal villas and brought together Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese architectural styles. Post imported stone from Italy, silk panels from Venice. She used Mar-a-Lago to host lavish parties for America's elite, as well as philanthropic events. In January, 1969, the federal government designated the estate a national historic sight, and Congress added it to the register of historic places in 1972.

Post died in 1973 and donated the 114-room property to the federal government in the hopes that it would become a president's "winter White House." After 10 years, the government decided it could no longer justify the maintenance costs, so looked into selling the estate.

Enter: Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's acquisition of Mar-a-Lago

Trump bought Mar-a-Lago and many of its furnishings in 1985 for a relatively low sum — around $10 million, or around $29 million today. Originally, Trump used the estate as a private residence, with an opulent interior reminiscent of European palaces. When the Trump Organization ran into financial troubles in the 1990s, though, the property became too expensive to keep up — it cost more than $3 million each year and didn't turn a profit.

Initially, Trump wanted to split up the grounds around the main home and build eight houses named "The Mansions at Mar-a-Lago." He bumped up against Palm Beach officials and historic preservationists, though, and a landmark commission eventually rejected his proposal. His plans thwarted, Trump opened Mar-a-Lago as a club in 1995.

Under an agreement with the town of Palm Beach, membership at Mar-a-Lago is capped at 500 members. Back then, Trump said the initiation fee cost $25,000. By 2017, that number had jumped up to $200,000, and $300,000 in October, 2024. On top of the initiation fee, members pay annual dues of around $20,000 and there is a reported $2,000 minimum annual dining requirement.

The current value of Mar-a-Lago was a point of significant contention in a civil fraud trial against Trump about his alleged efforts to mislead banks and insurers about property values. Trump had previously said that the estate was worth more than $1 billion and obsessed over the valuation while speaking on the witness stand during his trial, which resulted in a guilty verdict. According to the suit, the Trump Organization valued the property at a high of $739 million between 2011 and 2021.

Though Palm Beach County tax appraisers valued Mar-a-Lago between $18 million and $37 million, that assessment relates to its net income as a club rather than its value as a home. Prosecutors in the civil fraud case said it should be valued at $75 million.

Mar-a-Lago Club today

The resort recently hiked up the initiation fee once again, raising it to $1 million. Membership grants access to the dining facilities, spa, pool, beach club, guest rooms, fitness center, tennis courts, and croquet lawns.

There are no restaurant menus available on the Mar-a-Lago website, which advertises themed dinners, fashion show lunches, and a seafood night. The resort is also available for events like weddings, though no prices are listed on the website for those services or rooms, either. In order to host an event at Mar-a-Lago, one needs to be sponsored by a current club member. Trump and Melania had their wedding reception at the estate.

Applications to join the club soared after Trump won the presidency in 2016. Membership lists are generally kept private, though those reviewed by media outlets have included Wall Streeters, real estate moguls, and campaign donors. Among them are former New England Patriots manager Bill Belichick, oil refiner Bill Koch, and real estate mogul Robert LeFrak.

Various celebrities have visited the resort over the years, including Celine Dion and Serena Williams. In 1992, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein reportedly hosted a party there.

Despite its financial exclusivity, Mar-a-Lago was inclusive compared to surrounding resorts when it first opened. Trump allowed Jews and African-Americans who had been barred from other facilities to join, and he is thought to be Palm Beach's first private club owner to admit an openly gay couple.

Mar-a-Lago's role in politics

In the decades since it opened, Mar-a-Lago's guest list has become more dominated by Republican lawmakers, lobbyists, tech executives, and MAGA influencers. It's now a hub of Trump's political activity and has unwittingly fulfilled Post's vision of a presidential escape.

Winter White House

In a post on X from two days before his first inauguration, Trump dubbed Mar-a-Lago his "Winter White House." He spent approximately 25% of his first month in office at the resort and had switched his formal residence to Florida by 2019.

Trump has hosted the leaders of at least seven foreign countries at Mar-a-Lago, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When he was president, Secret Service agents frequently stayed with him at the properties. The cost of an overnight stay is not entirely clear, but in 2017 taxpayers paid as much as $650 per night for each room agents occupied, according to federal records. In 2018, the rate dipped to $396.15 per night.

In addition to hosting meetings at Mar-a-Lago, Trump authorized a missile strike on Syria from the property in 2017.

Mar-a-Lago as Trump's post-presidency home

After leaving the White House in 2017, Trump moved back to Mar-a-Lago despite resistance from neighbors. Some Palm Beach residents objected to his plans, arguing that the 1993 agreement that established the club barred him from doing so. Under the agreement, club members cannot stay at Mar-a-Lago for more than seven consecutive days or 21 days annually, but it does not explicitly say whether Trump can legally live there. Eventually, the town's attorney determined that Trump can legally live at Mar-a-Lago if he's considered an employee of the club, and the town council decided he's a "bone fide employee."

Mar-a-Lago was a favored locale for Trump and his supporters throughout the 2024 campaign. He held various fundraisers at the resort, including meals where tickets could cost tens of thousands of dollars. Trump watched election results roll in from the property, surrounded by family and Elon Musk.

Trump barely left Mar-a-Lago after winning a second term, turning the estate into his transition team's home base. Corporate CEOs and tech leaders all flocked to the property, which provided the most immediate access to the president-elect.

Controversies involving Mar-a-Lago

Since Trump took office in 2917, Mar-a-Lago has been the source of various political and legal controversies, and will likely sit at the center of more ethical questions during his second term.

Classified documents case

When presidents leave the White House, they are required to give their records to the National Archives and Records Administration; failing to do so and moving sensitive material to an unauthorized location is a crime. As Trump moved from Washington, DC to Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors said that he and his staff took classified documents with him. The boxes were allegedly scattered throughout the property, including in a shower, on the stage of a ballroom, and in accessible storage rooms. A former White House press secretary testified that she saw Trump show people classified documents on the dining patio at Mar-a-Lago.

The National Archives worked throughout 2021 and 2022 to regain the material. The Federal Bureau of Investigation eventually raided Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022, seizing thousands of documents, including around 100 that were classified. Jack Smith was appointed special counsel in the Justice Department's probe and charged Trump with illegally retaining national defense information, obstructing justice, and concealing documents. Trump pleaded not guilty to 40 criminal counts.

Trump's lawyers sought to delay the case until after the 2024 election and then have it thrown out entirely. Eventually, the judge dismissed the case on the legally dubious ground that Smith's appointment was improper. After Trump won a second term, Smith abandoned the case based on Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Prosecutors could theoretically pick the case back up once Trump leaves office.

Security issues

Mar-a-Lago has posed security challenges for years, with one former FBI agent calling it a "counterintelligence nightmare." Members can bring in anyone as a guest and there have been incidents of trespassing. The Secret Service has increased its presence at the estate since Trump won the election and the US Coast Guard now monitors waterways nearby.

Two assassination attempts against Trump during the campaign, including one at his Palm Beach golf course, put renewed scrutiny on security concerns. The Secret Service faces challenges when protecting a president outside, particularly on a golf course with large open areas lined by potential hiding places like trees.

Ethics and financial scrutiny

During Trump's first term, lobbyists, politicians, and others spent money at Mar-a-Lago and the Trump hotel in Washington, DC. Foreign officials and corporate executives stayed at both properties, raising fears for some that people could subtly gain influence with Trump by financially supporting his properties. An investigation from the Government Accountability Office in 2020 found that three Mar-a-Lago club members influenced policy decisions at the Department of Government Affairs.

Since Trump sold the DC hotel in 2022, Mar-a-Lago may become the sole go-to hub, as it did for his transition team.

Trump resigned from the Trump Organization, his real estate business, when he took office the first time. At the time, the company promised not to make any new foreign deals while Trump was in office, but it's unclear whether it will reinstate that ban or adopt the same ethics rules. In the past four years, Trump has also started Trump Media & Technology Group, parent company to Truth Social, and ventured into cryptocurrency. Some legal and ethics experts worry that interested parties could also invest in either of those companies to exert influence.

"President Trump is grateful for the residents of Palm Beach, where he makes his home at Mar-a-Lago. He removed himself from his multi-billion dollar real estate empire to run for office and forewent his government salary, becoming the first President to actually lose net worth while serving in the White House," Steven Cheung, Trump's communications director, told BI in a statement.

Representatives for the Trump Organization did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. Mar-a-Lago does not have a press office.

• Donald Trump will be returning to the White House after the inauguration on January 20.
• His name is splashed across buildings all over the world, but he hasn't called that many home.
• Here's a look at some of the most significant houses of Trump's life, past and present.

Donald Trump became president of his father's real-estate company in 1971, building residences, hotels, casinos, and more over the course of his career.

The president-elect's name appears on properties from Turkey to India, but he hasn't truly lived in that many.

From a triplex penthouse wholly decorated in gold to a palatial country estate once owned by the Heinz family, Trump's chosen homes are pretty special

Today, the property most synonymous with Trump is his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago, where he spent a large chunk of his first term and has recently hosted Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and more.

Once he's inaugurated a second time, Trump will move back to the White House in Washington, DC.

If his next presidential term is anything like his last, Trump will still spend time at some of his other homes in Florida and in the Northeast. (Representatives for the Trump-Vance transition team didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.)

Here's a look at Trump's houses over the years.

Trump spent his early years in an affluent neighborhood in Queens, New York.

Trump was born in 1946 in Queens, New York, to Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. During his childhood, he lived in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, 22 miles east of Manhattan.

Jamaica Estates remains a relatively wealthy part of Queens, with a median listing price of $1.5 million, according to Realtor.com.

Trump's father was one of the real-estate developers who built Jamaica Estates, which has verdant streets lined with Tudor-style homes.

His dad also built the five-bedroom, 2,500-square-foot home on Wareham Place where Trump lived until he was four years old.

Trump's childhood home last sold in 2017 to a limited liability company called Trump Birth House, which paid $2.14 million for the property in an auction. A few months later, the home was listed on Airbnb with a nightly rate of $725.

Trump Birth House listed the home for sale again in February 2019, with an asking price $2.9 million. In September 2019, the house went back on the auction block but still could not find a buyer.

In October, real-estate website Curbed reported that the owner had been MIA and that 20 to 30 feral cats were living in the unkempt yard.

When Trump is in New York City, he stays in his three-story penthouse atop Trump Tower.

There are Trump towers all over the world, but the president-elect has called the Trump Tower home since it opened in 1983.

Trump owns a three-level penthouse designed by late interior designer Angelo Donghia in the Louis XIV style, draped in gold furnishings and accents.

Trump has claimed that the penthouse is more than 30,000 square feet, but Forbes said in 2022 that property records show the actual square footage is 10,996. In 2024, Forbes estimated that the condo was worth $50 million.

His real-estate firm's offices and 2016 presidential campaign were headquartered in Trump Tower, which rises 68 stories at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 56th Street.

Other past famous residents of Trump Tower include late-night talk show host Johnny Carson, pop icon Michael Jackson, and actor Bruce Willis.

Trump's primary residence is the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Built in 1927 by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, Mar-a-Lago is a 128-room mansion facing the Atlantic Ocean. According to the Mar-a-Lago website, Post donated the 17-acre property to the US government, who gave it back to the family when it couldn't keep up with the $1 million it cost each year to maintain the property.

Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago in 1985 for $5 million. He used it as a private residence until 1995, when he established it as The Mar-a-Lago Club. The Guardian reported in August that the initiation fee to join is $1 million.

Trump has renovated the property, including adding a 20,000-square-foot ballroom with Louis XIV gold and crystal finishes in 2005, according to the property's website.

Trump made Mar-a-Lago his primary residence in 2019.

Trump also has a massive country estate called Seven Springs outside New York City.

The president-elect owns a 60-room house in Westchester County, about 43 miles from Trump Tower.

Trump bought the estate, named Seven Springs, for $7.5 million in 1996. The seller was Eugene Meyer, the former Washington Post publisher who built it in 1919, according to the Trump Organization. Trump originally planned to turn the estate into a golf course but decided to keep it a private residence.

In addition to the main house, which has seven bedrooms over 50,000 square feet and was formerly owned by the Heinz family of ketchup fame, the property has carriage homes and three pools on its 230 acres.

The estate is so big that it straddles three different towns: Bedford, Armonk and Chappaqua.

Trump had claimed the property was worth $291 million, but Forbes reported in 2024 that the estate is worth closer to $30 million.

In March, New York State Attorney General Letitia James sought a sheriff's sale of Seven Springs as part of a $454 million judgment Trump was ordered to pay. Trump has appealed the ruling, and this week lawyers for the president-elect asked James to drop her civil fraud case against him.

Trump owns a few cottages at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

In 2002, Trump purchased Lamington Farm, a 506-acre estate in Bedminster, New Jersey, from National Fairways, a Connecticut-based golf course developer.

According to a 2002 article in the New York Times, Trump paid "substantially less than the $35 million the seller invested in the project."

Bedminster is a town about 40 minutes west of Newark, New Jersey, and about an hour from New York City.

Trump National Golf Club, which has two 18-hole courses, opened in 2004.

In 2009, Trump's daughter, Ivanka, married Jared Kushner, who then worked for his family's real-estate development firm, at the golf club in Bedminster in 2009.

The main house is used as a private club for members of the golf course, but the Trump family owns cottages on the property. According to a 2017 article from Politico, Trump has a villa exclusively for him that has a two-story balcony and porch.

Trump is estimated to have played 261 rounds of golf, one every 5.6 days, during his first term as president, according to an analysis by the Washington Post.

In 2017, Bedminster hosted the US Women's Open. In 2022, it was going to host the PGA Championship, but the association relocated it to a different venue after the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.

Trump will move into the White House after the inauguration on January 20.

Built in 1792, the White House has been home to every US president since 1800. Trump, of course, already stayed in the White House during his presidency from 2017 to 2021.

With 132 rooms — which include 16 guest rooms, 35 bathrooms, and three kitchens — the White barely beats out some of the other properties he owns when it comes to opulence and grandeur.

• Maye Musk commented on her son's friendship with Donald Trump in a Fox Business interview.
• Elon Musk and the president-elect are having "a lot of fun," she said.
• Maye Musk called her son "the genius of the world" and backed him to slash government waste.

Elon Musk and Donald Trump are two of the world's wealthiest and most powerful men. Musk helped Trump regain the White House and now wants to shake up the federal government.

Musk's mother, Maye, commented on their budding bromance in an interview on Fox Business this week: "They just seem to be having fun, a lot of fun, and that's nice for both of them to have fun."

Elon Musk, 53, is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest man on the planet with a net worth close to $350 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Trump, 78, is the president-elect of the world's biggest economy, a real-estate tycoon, reality TV star — and a convicted felon.

Elon "really respects him a lot and is really happy that there's a future for America now," Maye said.

The model and dietitian said she's only briefly seen the two men together as she lives in New York. The pair have been hanging out at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida where Musk has joined calls with other world leaders and weighed in on cabinet picks. They also attended a SpaceX launch in Texas this month.

Many mothers champion their children and sing their praises, and Maye is no exception. She echoed her son's scathing criticism of the "dishonest Democrat media," and said they would be "trying to break up the relationship" between him and the incoming president.

Maye said that calling Elon "wealthy" or a "billionaire" was "degrading," and she thinks of him as "the genius of the world."

She also predicted that, as the co-chief of a new Department of Government Efficiency, he would easily eliminate government waste. Just as he did at Twitter, now X, he would mandate workers return to the office and fire employees who fail to point out anything worthwhile they've done in the past week, May added.

Elon is clearly close to his mother. He's posted pictures of them, sent her heart emojis on X, taken her to several high-profile events, and brought her on during his opening monologue when hosting "Saturday Night Live" in 2021.

Similarly, Maye has shared childhood photos of Musk and repeatedly said how proud she is of him.