When
Milton hits Florida, former President Donald Trump will not be at Mar-a-Lago,
which has reinforced walls that have remained standing after every hurricane.
Darrell
Hofheinz Palm Beach Daily News
19 hours ago
With
Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall Oct. 9 on Florida's Gulf Coast as a
major hurricane, a tropical storm watch was put in effect Oct. 7 for Palm Beach
County — and that includes Palm Beach, home of former President Donald Trump’s
famous Mar-a-Lago Club.
Milton is
projected to strike Central Florida with forecasters cautioning residents to
keep a close eye on the storm's projected path, as the powerful category 5
storm packed 175 mph winds as of 2 p.m. Monday.
The forecast
for Palm Beach, home of Mar-a-Lago, includes heavy rainfall through mid-week
and potential tropical storm-strength winds of between 58 and 72 mph, the
National Weather Service in Miami said.
While Trump
and his family will not be in Palm Beach as the storm moves through Florida,
they should be able to rest a little easier over the next few days knowing that
Mar-a-Lago — the official residence of the Republican presidential candidate —
has weathered intense hurricanes since it was built in 1927 by cereal heiress
Marjorie Merriweather Post and her then-husband, stockbroker E.F. Hutton.
For one
thing, the house is literally rock solid: Concrete and steel anchors the
structure to the coral reef below it. Many of the walls are 3 feet thick.
“This place
will not move,” said the late Tony Senecal, who for years served as Trump’s
butler at Mar-a-Lago, in 2005. “That's why, during a hurricane, you'll always
see me here. If it goes, I'll go with it.”
Mar-a-Lago's
stucco-covered walls have remained standing after every hurricane, including
the massive killer storm that wreaked havoc on South Florida’s coast in 1928.
The damage at Mar-a-Lago, however, was mostly confined to uprooted trees, Post
later said, although there was damage to the mansion's famous Roman-style
window.
The mansion
weathered another hurricane in 1947 that flooded the neighborhood and points
south, and washed away much of the coastal road.
But the
house isn't totally impervious.
In September
2017, a part of the main club building sustained roof damage and minor roof
leaks when the outer bands of Hurricane Irma swept Palm Beach. In addition,
several trees were knocked down and landscaping was thinned along the
property's south wall. Town officials at the time confirmed they had received
no reports of structural damage to Mar-a-Lago or any building on the island.
Earlier, the
building withstood the double whammy of back-to-back Hurricanes Frances and
Jeanne in 2004.
“We lost a
lot of the vegetation that gave Mar-a-Lago its character,” Trump told the Palm
Beach Post after Hurricane Frances. “I wasn't there for the storm, but I've
been told by my people there that it re-landscaped the place. There was a
little flooding in some of the basements, too.”
In 2005 came
Hurricane Wilma, which surprised locals with its strength when it barreled in
from the west.
An
investigation by the Associated Press in 2016 found little evidence that Wilma
severely damaged Mar-a-Lago, despite Trump saying in a 2007 court deposition
that he had been paid $17 million on an insurance claim after the storm.
Trump
acquired the mansion in 1985. A decade later, after pouring millions of dollars
into its restoration, he opened The Mar-a-Lago Club, retaining residential
quarters to use for himself and family members. Trump-related entities also own
three houses adjacent to the club property.
When a
hurricane threatens, the staff at Mar-a-Lago prepares for the storm in much the
same way that other Palm Beach property owners do, including removing or
securing outdoor furnishings and other items that could become wind-borne
missiles during a storm.
Property
owners also might lower the water levels in the swimming pool and place
sandbags in front of outside doors, especially important in low-lying areas.
Full-house
generators were rarities in Palm Beach before the storms of 2004 and 2005 but
are now commonplace. Owners often give their generators a test-run in
anticipation of electricity outages following a storm.
During
Trump's restoration project in the 1990s, Mar-a-Lago's original windows were
carefully preserved and restored, including a number of elaborately gilded ones
in the main room, according to Fort Lauderdale-based architect Tamara Peacock
of Peacock Architects, who worked on the project.
Unlike other
historic buildings that have been restored in Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago still uses
old-fashioned metal window shutters to protect its vintage windows, including
the large one on the front of the
building.
In 2016,
Peacock said Mar-a-Lago was better equipped to withstand a storm than many
vintage buildings.
“I've seen
quite a number of historic houses during my career," she said. "It’s
the most well built.”
*Portions of
this story appeared previously in the Palm Beach Daily News.
Darrell
Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm
Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column.
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