Mar-a-Lago: The Winter White House

The Palm Beach property had once been envisioned as a “Winter White House” — With a few secrets up its sleeve.

The picturesque mansion that sits in Palm Beach Florida was built in the early 1920s (Mar-a-Lago means in Spanish “Sea to Lake”). The construction of the extremely large and complex property started in 1923 and housed around 600 workers just to make sure it kept up with its high standards. That’s a lot of workers for a property, I agree. It had 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms with fixtures that where gold plated, 1,800 square foot living room with 42-foot ceilings. It’s entire 110,00 square foot was covered in gold leaf, beautiful Spanish tiles, Italian marble and Venetian silks. Originally built for $7 Million and in today’s price, close to $90 Million.

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It was finally completed in 1927 and by 1968 it was referred to as the Winter White House and went up for sale as it lived through the Florida depression, the depression hit Florida first before the rest of the country. As it went up for sale in 1985, it was bought by non-other than Donald J. Trump. He paid $8 Million for the entire estate and all of its furnishings. A good deal, I would say.

However, the property also has a few tricks up its sleeve. The government in the 1940s built a nuclear bunker on the site, it was used to store bombs in a manner that if they exploded, they would not in Trump’s own words “blow half of Palm Beach County to kingdom come”.

Quite impressive for a luxury retreat but it does not stop there. The White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump was briefed at his Mar-a-Lago property in his words, “There is a SCIF there. It was utilised on two occasions that evening to convey to the president by his national security team the situation in North Korea,” Spicer said. You may be wondering, what is a SCIF?

Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (pronounced “skiff”), a U.S. Department of Defense term for a secure room. It can be a secure room or data center that guards against electronic surveillance and suppresses data leakage of sensitive security and military information.

They are utilised to deny unauthorised personnel, such as spies, the chance to exploit sensitive information or data from the compound or conversation from meetings.

Since inauguration day of January 20th, Donald J. Trump flew from Washington DC over to his Florida based Mar-a-Lago property to spend some well-earned rest after 4 years of constant end to end battle to fight for America and its freedoms. However, the man that never sleeps, seems to have chosen such property because of its hidden gems for his and his families protection as he continues his ongoing fight to put America first. It seems a wise choice to have chosen this as his first landing spot to put his feet up.

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