Fruity Pebbles or Grape-Nuts

 Marjorie Merriweather Post said she wanted, “a little cottage by the sea.”  But her less than happy husband said, “Look what we got!”  

If you are not sure you know who Marjorie Merriweather Post is, take a close look at her last name and think of cereal.  Yes, that Post.  Marjorie did not marry into the fortune.  She was born a Post. Despite being married four times she consistently kept her maiden name because that is where both the money and the power were seated. 

In the 1920’s Post and her second husband decided that they wanted to build a home in Palm Beach, an area long the winter home of the rich and powerful, as only they could be rich and powerful in the era prior to a national income tax.  Marjorie personally chose the site, 17 acres between Lake Worth and the Atlantic and gave it an appropriate name indicating it lay “between the sea and the lake.”  In Spanish that name is Mar-a-Lago.  Building began in 1923 and was completed in 1927. 

Excess marked every aspect of the home.  There were 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms with gold-plated fixtures.  The living room alone is 1800 square feet, which is bigger than my entire house.  The house was conspicuous in its consumption of gold leaf, Spanish tiles, Italian marble and Venetian silks.  It’s $7 million price tag is the equivalent of $90 million today.  It must also be mentioned that Ms Post treated her 600 builders well and opened her home to a myriad of charitable events, including a Ringling Brothers Circus held for the poor children in the area.  [With difficulty, I am going to refrain from forming the obvious correlation between the Ringling Brothers Circus and the current clown car in residence at the same venue.]

Marjorie Post was not the only member of the moneyed class to build mansions in Florida in the 1920’s.  But by the 1950’s, such high-maintenance homes were seen as too expensive to maintain.  Most were first sold, then abandoned and finally razed.  Even Post (1887-1973) decided that her three beautiful homes would be given to charitable trusts, rather than trying to maintain them within the family. 

Her Mar-a-Lago was offered to the state of Florida as a home for advanced scholars.  Florida decided it didn’t need any advance scholars, at least not at the price of Mar-a-Lago.  As it turns out this was a prescient decision.  Florida has evidently decided it does not need scholars of any kind, and, in fact, the less educated the population is, the more Florida’s current government likes it.  But, I digress.

In 1968 the home was offered as a winter White House, but the United States government turned it down.  It was just too expensive to maintain a mammoth home that was built with pre-Depression plumbing, wiring and inefficient nooks and crannies. 

Subsequently, the home went on the market and Trump bought it in 1985 for $8 million.  He then, to afford a home that matched his ego but not his bank account, decided to turn it into a golf club, renting out rooms to wealthy guests.  Essentially this is Trump’s version of Ma Bailey’s boarding house, but it allows him to put on the façade so important to his ego.  Trump’s necessity to make money off this property even extended to charging the Secret Service full price for the rooms they needed to occupy when they were protecting him during his failed Presidency.  

Mar-a-Lago is now in the news, in part because of a hollowed-out room that Trump had built under his office.  The hotel staff generally referred to the area as the Mold Room and it was used to store tables, chairs and generally unneeded items. Then Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago and the Mold room became the storage area for highly classified items that belong to the United States government.   

Many people are wondering why Trump left the White House with hundreds of documents of  strategic value.  I am pretty sure the reason for the top-secret material is the same reason he bought a house and then started renting out rooms to boarders.  Trump needs the money.  He has always needed the money.  A grifter always needs a good front.  They talk fast, tell the mark what they want to hear, grab the money and run.   

Remember, Trump is no Post.  He isn’t even Fruity Pebbles, though he might be Grape-Nuts. 

Have a bowl of cereal and keep the faith.