Before he was a brash outsider challenging the establishment and shaking up the 2016 Republican presidential race, Donald Trump caused similar pearl-clutching among the old guard in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump rubbed plenty of folks the wrong way when he bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985, proposed carving it into eight “Mansions at Mar-a-Lago” and then settled on the idea of turning the landmark into a private club.
“A lot of people like to think Palm Beach is a little more genteel and old money. This is a new-money idea at an old-money location,” one socialite said in 1994.
But the Mar-a-Lago Club — and Trump — have become institutions in Palm Beach.
Could Trump follow his Palm Beach model to the Republican nomination and the White House?
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