I was reading about the history of the house. Fascinating.
https://apnews.com/article/7e30551e15715cb19a0a0906f407a91d
Seems like some folks in the county may have beef with Trump going back to the 80s and 90s, the lowering of neighboring property values after the Trump purchases, and Trump’s serial litigations around the airport.
It does seem to be the case that Trump was very aggressive and mar-a-logo wasn’t his first choice. He selected it after losing out on other deals. And he wasn’t that bothered by its historical / cultural significance either... He promised to build separate properties on the land (but in the end didn’t) and only negotiated the creation of the club to appease his creditors.
People who think he should bulldoze it... it had already had National Historic Landmark status for 40 years before he bought it.
In that spirit, let’s assume he did enter into a signed legal agreement with neighbors and county in writing to only use the house as a ‘winter White House’ on the basis that he finally realized that the property was so historically, culturally and uniquely valuable that at least some of its original character needed to be preserved.
I bet the local worry has always been that the minute the house becomes nothing more than a a cheap acquisition and fully private residence it’ll be redecorated from floor to Donald Trump’s personal taste, which some think would be as unconscionable as chiselling the beard off the Lincoln Memorial.
That said, it’s his property not the nation’s.
It’s a property that has all the potential to become a national monument as long as he doesn’t mess around with it too much. And if he wants to turn it into a garish gold-leaf vajazzled homage to 70s Shag Palaces instead, he must already expect fierce resistance because he’s been there before.
Sign me up if Trump crashes the surrounding property market, makes all his neighbors loathe him enough to sell up and move on, and I can pick up some nearby prime real estate on the cheap.
I’d even promise in writing to never say anything negative about my opinion on Trump’s taste in décor for Mar-a-Logo after he’s given it a full facelift.
Darn the lack of an edit feature here... I meant it’s had status for 40 years and already had that status before Trump purchased it.