The Complete Design History of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach
Mar-a-Lago is perhaps best known today as Donald J. Trump’s Palm Beach home and resort-style private club, but its design story harkens back to the 1920s, when a notable heiress dreamed up a European-style estate of epic proportions. Here, we take you inside Mar-a-Lago (with plenty of photos!) and detail the history of the estate’s architecture and interior design—including what historic designs have been preserved and what additions have been made to the historic main house since 1927.
Whether you’re planning a trip to Palm Beach this winter, following along with the changes to the White House as Trump is inaugurated this month, or just interested in the decorative details of a fascinating estate, you’re sure to find this design history intriguing.
Mar-a-Lago’s European-Inspired Design
Mar-a-Lago was originally the estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the daughter of cereal magnate C. W. Post. Legend has it that she crawled through the underbrush of Palm Beach Island’s undeveloped land in the 1920s looking for just the right piece of property between the ocean and Lake Worth. When she found it, she named it “Mar-a-Lago,” which is Spanish for “sea to lake.” After four years of construction, the elaborate 17-acre estate opened in 1927 with the main home secured to the coral reef beneath it with concrete and steel to help it withstand hurricanes and tropical storms.
Drawing from her European travels, Post envisioned uniting Spanish, Venetian, and Portuguese styles in Mar-a-Lago’s design. American architect Marion Sims Wyeth designed the structure of the main home, and Post hired Viennese-born designer Joseph Urban, who also created production designs for the Metropolitan Opera, to oversee interior decoration of the estate. Urban, in turn, invited Viennese sculptor Franz Barwig to create whimsical animal motifs to adorn Mar-a-Lago’s exterior—including parrots, monkeys, ram’s heads, eagles, and griffins that can be still be seen today.
“Mar-a-Lago had 58 bedrooms, it had 33 bathrooms, it had a 9-hole golf course, it had an 1,800-square-foot living room, and it had a 75-foot tower. This was not a modest estate.” Eliot Kleinberg, a staff writer for The Palm Beach Post, said on a Curiosity Stream video.
While the cypress wood used for Mar-a-Lago’s doors and beams was sourced locally and the ironwork was cast locally as well, three boatloads of fossil-bearing Doria limestone were imported from Genoa, Italy, to create arches, sculptures, and other features on the house, according to a 1972 Historic American Buildings Survey from the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation.
Post acquired 36,000 15th-century Spanish tiles, some with Moorish design influence, for the estate, as well as about 20,000 roofing tiles, varying in color from black to salmon, to complement Mar-a-Lago’s pink stucco exterior. A set of 2,200 black and white marble floor blocks was brought in from a Cuban castle.
The result of assembling all these materials and more was unlike anything Palm Beach had ever seen before. “In the hands of the Viennese-born Urban, the Spanish Mediterranean Revival architecture—popularized by [Addison] Mizner and featuring barrel vaulted roofs, loggias, fountains, tiles, metalwork, and arcades—is pulled and pushed into almost Jugendstil confections,” writes John Stuart for the Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia, referencing a German artistic movement that started in the 1890s.
Mar-a-Lago’s Ornate Interior Details
One of the estate’s most notable features is a 75-foot-tall tile-roofed tower and observation deck, but the two-story central family quarters were intentionally designed to keep the main house from looking too massive. A rectangular facade faces the ocean, and on the other side, a crescent-shaped arc lined with double cloisters overlooks Lake Worth, with a patio paved with surf-polished stones. Post discovered the stones on Long Island and had them laid in a pattern she had seen at the Alhambra palace in Grenada, Spain.
“Urban organizes the spaces around the curved patio so that each gets its own special view and orientation reminiscent of the theatrical layout of the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome,” Stuart writes.
European design inspiration continued inside the main house. The living room’s gold leaf ceiling, 42 feet high in some places, was a copy of the “Thousand-Wing Ceiling” at the Accademia in Venice, with sunbursts instead of angels. Needlework panels from a Venetian palace adorned the walls, and antique Spanish lanterns were suspended from seven archways.
Facing the ocean, a raised loggia led to a 12-foot-wide arched window so large that the freight cars transporting it from Pittsburgh were rerouted around tunnels and low bridges. At the entry to the grand room, cherubs were carved onto each of 34 recessed panels on massive arched doors.
In the dining room, decorated with murals modeled after frescoes in Rome’s Chigi Palace, Urban designed a 4,000-pound inlaid marble table, based on antique tables he’d seen in Florentine galleries, that was crafted by a team of 15 artists in Italy.
Each of the bedroom suites in the house was named for its design: the Adams Suite, with its Colonial style; the Dutch Suite, with Dutch delft tiles Post’s mother had particularly enjoyed; the Spanish Suite, with porcelain “ladies-in-waiting” figurines nestled within the niches of a tiled fireplace; and the Venetian Suite, with its crystal chandeliers.
The Baby House suite was designed with a fairy-tale theme for Post’s daughter, actress Dina Merrill, as a child, with pink roses on twisting vines climbing up the beehive fireplace screen and door handles shaped like squirrels.
Once Mar-a-Lago was built and decorated, Post would change little over the decades to come, except for adding a dance pavilion to host square dance parties.
Renovations and Restorations to Mar-a-Lago Under Donald Trump’s Ownership
After decades of hosting parties and dignitaries at Mar-a-Lago, Post died in 1973, but not before developing a vision for the estate to become a “Winter White House” and willing it to the federal government for presidential retreats and hosting international dignitaries. The year before Post’s death, the estate was also declared a National Historic Landmark. Due to maintenance and security concerns, the government later transferred the property to the Post Foundation, and Donald J. Trump purchased it in 1985 (reportedly for $10 million, according to the Associated Press, though sources vary on the actual cost) and used it as a private residence for a decade.
For one phase of initial renovations after the purchase of the estate, Trump hired interior decorator Buffy Donlon, and Richard Haynes, the son of the chief gilder Post had used, as artist in residence. Haynes reapplied 23-karat-gold leaf and restored faded murals to their original vivid color. As one of many changes, Trump hung his own portrait in the library in the same place Post’s had been for decades.
After Trump agreed to save the main house’s critical features noted above by donating control of them to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the opening of Mar-a-Lago as a private club in 1995 called for more work to accommodate heavier guest traffic flow and enable smaller dining parties. Trump would retain an apartment within the estate going forward. Lead preservation architect Tamara Peacock, now based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, worked with Trump starting in 1997 to repurpose rooms into 10 hotel suites on the second floor, create a commercial kitchen for events, design a new space for parties, and make all the spaces ADA accessible, a process that took three years in total.
“He really kept the character and historic parts intact and just polished and lit it up for the building’s next chapter of life,” Peacock said on her website.
Further, West Palm Beach—based REG Architects has served as master planner and architect for Mar-a-Lago since 1995 and has worked on additions to the property, including a spa and salon, tennis club and beach club, an addition to the original Post ballroom, owner’s quarters, guest house, helipad, and boat dock. The firm received an award from the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation for its restoration, rehabilitation and conversion of this project in 1998.
Throughout renovations and additions, Trump has certainly kept the gold theme of the estate going strong. “It’s just gold. It’s gold, gold, gold,” Laurence Lerner, author of Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace, told CNN regarding the building in 2022.
In 2005, a new $40 million, 20,000-square-foot ballroom for The Mar-a-Lago Club was unveiled, designed in the style of Louis XIV and modeled after the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. He spent $7 million alone on 24-karat gold sheets alone that adorn the ceiling, along with 17 crystal chandeliers. The inaugural event for the Donald J. Trump Ballroom, which seats 700, was his wedding to Melania Knauss.
As Mar-a-Lago nears its 100th birthday in 2027, much has changed, but its European-inspired design remains grandiose for all who visit what has become, after all, a Winter White House.

Madoline Markham Koonce is the assistant managing editor at VERANDA, where she covers décor, shopping, travel, and culture. She began her career at Southern Living and then worked in community journalism—including serving as editor of three community magazines she helped launch—before joining the team of both VERANDA and Country Living magazines. She has an undergraduate degree in history from Rhodes College (and loves to tap her love of history in her writing) as well as a master’s degree in magazine journalism from the University of Missouri. When she’s not on deadline, you can find her baking or lost in a good book.
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