![]() Wolkoff helped facilitate Melania’s transition to the White House, and advised her on policy platforms, East Wing décor, and her overall messaging. After Trump’s surprise electoral-college victory, she went on to help the First Lady in Washington, serving as a senior adviser to her official governmental office on matters large and small. ( Anna Wintour, who hosts the gala, is editor-in-chief of Vogue and the artistic director of Condé Nast, Vanity Fair’s parent company.) Over the years, Wolkoff would become a member of Melania’s small inner circle. The two women had met years earlier, when Wolkoff helped produce the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute Benefit. Wolkoff, for a time, was a lesser-known, but equally diligent enforcer for Melania Trump. Cohen had been an indefatigable booster of Donald Trump, helping to arrange his real-estate deals, paying off alleged mistresses, and quashing would-be damaging stories regarding his boss. More notably, both were crucial supporting players in the Trump orbit. ![]() Both lived on the same block on the Upper East Side. For years, Cohen and Wolkoff had operated in a shared milieu. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Last summer, months after federal agents executed search warrants on his home, office, and hotel room-seizing more than a dozen devices and hundreds of records- Michael Cohen made a phone call to Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. SHAPIRO: In 2017, Mar-a-Lago did become then-President Trump's winter White House, where he hosted press conferences and a number of world leaders, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping.ĬHANG: So in a way, decades after her death, Marjorie Merriweather Post got her wish.Ĭopyright © 2022 NPR. LUONGO: Without Donald Trump, would that house have been preserved or not? So that's another thing to think about. government, hoping it would be a retreat for presidents and diplomats - a, quote, "winter White House." But the federal government decided it was too expensive to maintain.ĬHANG: So then, in 1985, real estate mogul Donald Trump bought the property for $5 million, plus millions more for the house's antiques, saving Mar-a-Lago from meeting the same fate that so many of Palm Beach's extravagant properties of that era met - demolition. SHAPIRO: When Post died in 1973, she wanted that to continue. LUONGO: She was a wealthy society woman who was very hands-on and knew how to use Mar-a-Lago for very good purposes for the United States and for the local community. Post even opened up Mar-a-Lago to World War II veterans that needed occupational therapy in 1944. ![]() Adjusted for today's inflation, that is more than $100 million.ĬHANG: According to her obituary, she built the estate because her first Florida home, quote, "became too small for her parties." With 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms, Mar-a-Lago was just the right size to host royalty, diplomats, charity events and costume balls. Marjorie Merriweather Post spent about $7 million building it. He dug into Mar-a-Lago's history for Smithsonian Magazine. MICHAEL LUONGO: Mar-a-Lago is a classic Spanish Revival, Spanish Renaissance, Mediterranean Revival mansion of the 1920s - very, very much of its time, very opulent. Heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post built the Palm Beach property back in the 1920s. We've been hearing quite a bit lately about Mar-a-Lago, but its rich history began long before Donald Trump ever moved in.
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