How Melania Trump Has Changed Mar-a-Lago

The wives of former President Donald Trump have all had some influence over his iconic Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, but former first lady Melania Trump's style is most prevalent despite making the fewest amount of changes, according to the author of a new book.

"When you really study what she's done there, it's almost like a little bit of each of her predecessors," Mary Shanklin, the author of American Castle: One Hundred Years of Mar-a-Lago, told Newsweek.

The former president has owned Mar-a-Lago since 1985 after he purchased the national historic landmark from the Post family. The mansion was commissioned to be built by heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s, and it stayed in her possession until her death in 1973, when it was bequeathed to the National Park Service before the government returned it to her family due to the high cost of maintaining it.

When Trump left the White House in January 2021, "The iconic landmark [of Mar-a-Lago] began to shift its identity once again, this time becoming the permanent residence of Mr. Trump and his Slovene-American wife, Melania Trump," Shanklin wrote in the book.

Melania, who has stayed largely out of the public spotlight since he left office, was seen with the former president for the first time in seven months last week when the couple attended a Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago. Previously, the last spotting of the pair had been an Easter brunch there on April 9.

In a Tuesday interview, Shanklin described Melania as dabbling in the various aspects that her predecessors took on during their time at the 17-acre estate. Drawing on the influence of Post, as well as Donald's late first wife, Ivana Trump, and his second wife, Marla Maples, Melania has sought to tie together the social, entrepreneurial and maternal legacies that came before her.

"Marjorie Merriweather Post—she was the queen of the social empire of Palm Beach," Shanklin said. "Melania has never been that in Palm Beach."

She said that while the former first lady has hosted some events at the property and gotten her name out in the social circle of Palm Beach, Melania hasn't really made inroads in Florida's "old money" society. Noting that Melania spends more of her time in New York, Shanklin said, "That's probably where she's on more solid ground and has more of a network."

Melania reportedly spends her summers in New York and notably continued to live in Trump Tower in Manhattan, even after she assumed the role of first lady, so that son Barron, whom she shares with Trump, could complete his school year. She officially moved into the White House in June 2017.

Ivana, who divorced Donald in 1990, has been largely viewed as a prominent figure in the former president's life and business. During their marriage, she took on major roles at the Trump Organization, including titles like senior executive and executive vice president for interior design.

Shanklin said Melania certainly isn't the same same business figure that Ivana was when she helped Donald build his empire, but noted the former first lady's line of jewelry, which she has reportedly worked on at Mar-a-Lago.

"With Marla Maples, she had her baby [Tiffany] at the local hospital. She went to Mar-a-Lago to spend her last trimester or so to get out of the cameras in New York, and then she kind of reinvented [Mar-a-Lago] in a really maternal way," Shanklin said. "With Melania, she did a little bit of that with Barron. They did a renovation for the nursery, but there's not that much she could do in terms of redoing the place."

The author said the reason that Melania hasn't been able to reshape Mar-a-Lago has largely been because of the historic easement that Donald signed, which turned the estate's status from a residential property to a club and thus allowed the real estate mogul to gain tax breaks and profit from new streams of income from the property.

So, instead of large renovations, Shanklin said, Melania "likes to make her splash of statement with flowers, colors and lighting, which is understandable with her background of being a model."

Although Mar-a-Lago was converted into a members-only club that featured guest rooms and hotel-like amenities, the Trump family maintains private living quarters there. Since Donald began pursuing his political dreams in 2015, Mar-a-Lago has also become a fixture of his three presidential campaigns.