Mar-a-Lago and the Palm Event

by philg

Despite not being a member of the Palm Beach elite or even elite-adjacent, I managed to bust into Mar-a-Lago recently for an annual event that benefits a local children’s charity, A Place of Hope. Why would anyone want to go to Mar-a-Lago? It’s a National Historic Landmark and important as an example of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. The centrality of this style of architecture to South Florida is explained in Bubble in the Sun book: even those with the best information can’t predict a crash and, in fact, our neighborhood within Abacoa is all Spanish Colonial Revival.

The most hated man in America appeared midway through the event to welcome the guests, praise the organization, praise the musical and theatrical talent, etc. Donald Trump was gracious and did not mention politics nor did he talk about himself. He had no teleprompter. Only a small percentage of the guests mentioned Donald Trump or seemed to have the November election on their minds, but there were exceptions. In the It’s Not a Cult Category:

(Is the “most hated man” appellation accurate? Far more people hate Trump than, for example, Jose Antonio Ibarra (the migrant arrested for the murder of Laken Riley).)

The Mar-a-Lago staff put on a copious buffet. I asked about a dozen of the workers how they liked working there and all were positive, with the exception of a seasonal worker from South Africa who was neutral.

Sadly, we didn’t get to go into the original main house, but some of the architectural details were interesting nonetheless:

What did people drive to the event? Ferrari was a common choice:

More unusual Ferraris were selected for display closer to the house rather than simply parked in the back yard. The silver Enzo below might be worth $4 million. (Remember that Democrats agreed that all of Mar-a-Lago was worth $18 million at his trial in New York, though now CNN’s experts say that it is worth “hundreds of millions”.)

For my friends who are Porsche fans, though it was much more an event for Ferrari nerds:

Rolls-Royce was well-represented. They love their colors:

People wouldn’t think less of you if you showed up in a humble Ford:

I had some difficulty connecting with the local Honda Odyssey owner’s club at the event, but it was a pleasant crowd of people and one in which trust prevails. I managed to lose my valet parking ticket and was able to pick up my car without being asked to prove my identity or association with the car (I knew where it was in the parking lot because I’d been taking photos).

Speaking of cars and Florida, I’ve had to replaced all four tires and the battery recently on the 3-year-old Odyssey. The summer-all-the-time weather is tough on both tires and batteries, apparently.

Related (on the subject of elites in and around Palm Beach)…

(This is the official airport management Twitter account.)

And regarding the challenge of maintenance:

11 thoughts on “Mar-a-Lago and the Palm Event”

  2. You saw a former POTUS & didn’t take a single photo or selfie? That takes incredible discipline or maybe the POTUS is always your drinking buddy. A lion can only be in the very back of an inauguration, staring at a dot in a viewfinder. Must have been packed with secret service agents.

    • lion: I’m not a huge celebrity hound. Also, I’m not a Donald Trump supporter at this point. I think Ron DeSantis is correct that Trump turned over the running of the U.S. to Dr. Fauci and friends in 2020. When it was time to take a broad view of human goals and activities and balance what the infectious disease nerds were saying against other priorities, Trump punted to people such as Fauci who have a very narrow view of humanity, e.g., that a human’s only job is to avoid infection. So I loved Trump’s 2017 tax policy, for example, which ended the Irish/Dutch corporate tax scam, and was a big fan of fellow minivan driver Amy Coney Barrett, but on reflection I think Trump did a terrible job in 2020 and, even if he had done a good job and provided some real leadership to the world’s most fearful and compliant humans (i.e., Americans) he is now too old to do a demanding job of any kind. I would still love to have breakfast with him at Mar-a-Lago!

      Separately, the Secret Service goons were not very visible. They might have done a bit of a background check on the registrants. We were told that they would search car trunks, etc., but I didn’t see them do that. I don’t remember walking through a metal detector even. As noted in the original post, it was a high trust environment.

  3. “Dr” Phil:

    How much did you donate to Trump/the charity? Maybe that’s why there was lax security — don’t want too many Russian names on a ledger.

    From the news:

    The New York attorney general filed suit against President Trump and his three eldest children, alleging “persistently illegal conduct” at the president’s personal charity, saying Trump repeatedly misused the nonprofit organization — to pay off his businesses’ creditors, to decorate one of his golf clubs and to stage a multimillion-dollar giveaway at his 2016 campaign events.

    Charitable dollars — consistently and over many years — often benefited Trump rather than the causes the president has repeatedly claimed he supports.

  4. Could you give a sense of the demographics of the Ferrari and Rolls Royce owners? I would ask about the Honda Odyssey demographics but I think I know that answer.

    • JJ: I didn’t meet any of The Rolls-Royce owners. The Ferrari owners seemed to be much like the rest of the crowd. Mostly people who were still working. A surprising number in the tech industry. Some of them they live in Palm Beach County and manage a business that is in Texas, Colorado, or California. The expected number (high!) of real estate developers! That’s been the primary path to riches in Florida for decades, though of course Mar-a-Lago isn’t worth too much.

  5. My impression is trophy wives used to be much younger and hotter. But perhaps this one is a lot of fun.

    • David: the more money spent on a wedding the higher the probability of a divorce lawsuit. So if the wedding was at Mar-a-Lago the real American Carnage likely won’t start for at least 3 years.

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