Good morning, this is The Smoke Eater for June 21, 2023, and the poor boy is on the line.
NOTE: The Smoke Eater is brought to you by its generous and super awesome readers. If you want to support independent journalism and keep this project going, please consider subscribing to my Patreon. Subscribers get access to The Smoke Eater, and additional perks.
ABOVE THE FOLD
12:25
The scene at Mar a Lago was dead.
There was only a handful of local broadcast crews in the little parking lot on Bingham Island. They were all sitting in big SUVs with the AC humming. A woman from the Canadian Broadcast Corp. (CBC) was pacing around the little sidewalk on the north side of the Lake Worth Lagoon. She wore a distressed look on her face and kept slapping her cellphone in her hand.
A couple tourists were plodding about. Some used binoculars to catch a glimpse of a Mar-a-Lago parking lot on the other side of the lagoon, about 500ft to East. Others pinched cellphone screens and snapped awful, pixelated selfies so the little pink building next to the tennis court was in frame.
There's not much to see on Bingham Island. There's private jets and 737s landing at Palm Beach International Airport, and a nice view of the lagoon. The parking lot on Bingham Island was recently rebuilt, but it's fairly unremarkable. It's hot, humid, and not a very pleasant place to be standing around.
A sunbaked fisherman siting in the back of a truck is cutting up fishing lines. He tries to ignore the news crews, but a gaggle of reporters trying to hit arbitrary deadlines are hard to ignore, especially broadcasters. A lit cigarette hangs loose from his mouth in just the same way mine does. We make eye contact and nod quietly at one another.
From what I've been told, this used to be a nice place to go fishing. You could drive over to the Intracostal Waterway, park at Bingham for a few hours and cast off from its little beach. You'd catch some fish then head back to the mainland. If you knew where to look, you could find a smoky dive somewhere in West Palm Beach with a kitchen that would clean and cook your fish while you sipped down a beer at the bar. Not so much anymore.
Palm Beach is a barrier island along the East coast of south Florida, about two hours north of Miami. For about 100 years, this has been the land of mansions, gated communities, golf courses, and private clubs. The long slivers of beachfront are almost tailor made to attract real estate developers who specialize in selling luxury views and privacy.
But one could still pull into this little lot on Rt. 98 and catch a couple fish without drawing the ire of wealthy snowbirds. Or so I'm told. Stories about "old Florida" always seem to come from unreliable narrators. Salty drunks, sea captains, geriatric suburbanites, disgraced politicos, retired executives - people who tend to see the "good old days" through rose-colored glasses.
Palm Beach is a place where America's super rich go to be amongst themselves. It's full private clubs where membership is historically based on class, race, religion, and the size of your off-shore bank account. Restaurants are full of 70 year-old men dining with plastic-filled trophy wives. The local Publix grocery store is full of luxury cars that cost more money than I made in the last decade.
The Rolls Royce that pulled up next to me at a stoplight already had its windows up, but I like to think they were annoyed by the power metal and cigarette smoke coming from my little truck.
BELOW THE FOLD
One hundred years ago most of South Florida was like a rain forrest. Legened has it that Marjorie Merriweather Post, the obscenely wealthy heiress to the Post cereal fortune, personally crawled through jungle in Palm Beach in search of a plot of land to build a palace. She settled on a roughly 20 acre parcel the spanned on the west side of the barrier island. It had a view of the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the Lake Worth Lagoon on the other.
By the time 600 workers finished building Post's elaborate, pink stucco palace with imported Spanish tile, British oak, Italian stone and solid gold accents, lighting and bathroom fixtures (which Post claimed were "easier to clean"), Post had sunk a sizeable chunk of her family fortune into the place.
Post called it "Mar-a-Lago," which translates to "Sea by the Lake." Architectural critics called it ridiculous and a gaudy monstrosity.
Before her death, Post tried gifting Mar-a-Lago to the state of Florida as a higher education institution, but they declined. When Post died in 1973, she willed it to the federal government to use as a retreat for presidents and foreign dignitaries. Like a big, pink Camp David with a beach view.
Because most US presidents are wealthy, many already had their own private retreats when they were elected. Woodrow Wilson had his "Dixie White House" in Pass Christian, Mississippi; Franklin D. Roosevelt had Warm Springs, Georgia; Harry Truman had his "Little White House" in Key West; the Kennedy's already had a family mansion in Palm Beach.
So when Post died and Uncle Sam inherited Mar-a-Lago, it caused a bit of a problem.
Richard Nixon considered Post's idea for a "Winter White House." Newspaper clippings and records in Nixon's Presidential Library show he flew to Florida on the morning of July 7, 1974. Nixon took a helicopter from his shitty ranch-style house in the suburbs of Key Biscayne and landed on Mar-a-Lago's "pitch-and-putt" golf course (ignoring a local ordinance banning helicopter flights in the area).
Nobody is sure why Nixon toured Mar-a-Lago. White House logs says Nixon, "looked over the property to determine its potential for possible use by U.S. Presidents for visiting foreign dignitaries," but the Department of Defense had just installed a helipad at his place in Key Biscayne, courtesy of US taxpayers. Nixon walked around for about an hour and then fucked off on a boat with his alleged bagman, Charles "Bebe" Rebozo, for the rest of the afternoon.
Regardless, Nixon never made a decision. He resigned in disgrace a month later on August 8.
Records in the Gerald Ford Presidential Library show the government tried to get Mar-a-Lago off its books almost immediately. Post had left a $3 million trust to cover the cost of maintenance, but the government deemed it insufficient. And when Congress accepted Mar-a-Lago, it specifically denied the use of any federal funds for its upkeep. Nobody wanted to foot the bill for a 17.7-acre mansion full of bathrooms with solid gold accents in a mansion metropolis. The state of Florida didn't want it, the Smithsonian couldn't use it, and Congress didn't want to get crucified by taxpayers in the middle of a recession.
In 1974, the government projected an annual cost $1 million in upkeep for Mar-a-Lago, ( around $3,345,731.57 in 2023). The Post Foundation disputed the figure, claiming annual upkeep was only around $125,000.
The Secret Service and the State Department deemed Mar-a-Lago impossible to secure. The estate sits directly within the flight path of the Palm Beach International Airport. What if some pissed off drunk got caught in a crosswind at takeoff and dropped a Cessna on top of the president? Or a spiteful 737 pilot dumped gallons of liquid shit all over the tennis courts? Either the airport would have to be moved, or air traffic would have be rerouted (as was done for Nixon's house in Key Biscayne).
Palm Beach residents had already rejected an effort to move the airport in the 1960s, voting instead to expand the airport in the hope of increasing commercial traffic and tourism. And taxpayers were pissed that they'd essentially paid for Nixon's private helipad. And in October of 1974, the local city council warned the Gerald Ford administration that a "winter White House" would create an "intolerable" traffic situation because Mar-a-Lago sits at the junction between the only North/South street on the island of Palm Beach. The city didn't want its wealthiest residents suffering through traffic nightmares every time a president or prime minister wanted to have a ball.
So, congress gave it back to the Marjorie Merriweather Post Foundation during the Reagan administration in 1981. An article in The New York Times said nobody never ever bothered to take the covers off the furniture. The place had been "mothballed," kept up by a skeleton crew of caretakers.
NOTE: I've reached out to the National Archives, the National Historical Society, and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, but neither had responded at press time. The Reagan Library says there was no contact between the Reagan White House and the Post Foundation beyond the acceptance of a gift of artwork. We do know that Carter never used the place. After all, Carter was a humble peanut farmer, not an aristocratic beach bum, and seemed to prefer Truman's "Little White House" in Key West.
This post will be updated if information is recieved.
The Post Foundation filed to have the property listed on the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places, but Post had specifically expressed that Mar-a-Lago not be open to the public. So the Podst Foundation had little choice but try and sell the place.
Clippings show Mar-a-Lago was expected fetch between $15 and $20 million when it went on the market. Their hope was that whomever bought Mar-a-Lago would continue its development (following the approval of the town council, of course).
The Times quoted Mar-a-Lago's then-superintendent, 55 year-old James Griffin, in 1981 saying that he hoped the new owner would, "appreciate the life style that goes with it," adding, "'It is a life style which most people in this day and age don't know or don't want."
NOTE: Griffin, who had literally spent his entire life at Mar-a-Lago, took over the job from his father in the 1950s. Post had personally selected Griffin’s father when the place was built just before the Great Depression. Griffin held the job for 50 years. He resigned in 1993, and died November 9, 2012 at 86.
The Post Foundation had trouble selling Mar-a-Lago. It's listing price was $20 million, but those who could afford it considered it garish and overpriced. In effect, it was a white elephant, and the city approved plans to demolish Mar-a-Lago as its Historic Places application languished in bureaucratic limbo.
Then a crass, low-life real estate developer from Queens, NY, who had a penchant for tipping off gossip rags about his dinner dates, started an aggressive campaign to buy Mar-a-Lago. Palm Beach had just denied his attempt to smoosh together to smaller lots in less extravagant area, and he seemed intent on keeping up with the ultra rich Jones' who avoided New York winters on their own private beaches in Florida.
The developer's initial offer of $15 million was rejected by the Post Foundation. They said they wouldn’t accept anything less than $20 million. The furniture, the Foundation argued, was valued at $8 million alone.
The son of a slumlord tax cheat who made his own bones by strong-arming the city and ripping off low-income tenants, the developer began telling gossip rags that if the Post Foundation wouldn't sell below its asking price, he would to screw them by purchasing the beachfront lot across the street to ruin its view of the Atlantic Ocean. The owner(s) of the lot, the recently deceased Jack Massey, was selling it for only $2 million.
Facing the prospect of a total loss, the Post Foundation eventually relented in 1985 and sold Mar-a-Lago to the developer for only $7 million. The developer quickly resumed efforts to have Mar-a-Lago recognized as a historic site by literally crossing out the name of the Post Foundation.
When the developer faced a near financial collapse less than a decade later, he tried to carve up Mar-a-Lago into a series of smaller lots, but the city quashed that. Instead, either through savvy business acumen or vengeful spite, he turned Mar-a-Lago into one of the most affordable and least exclusive private clubs in Palm Beach.
"[It's] a gong show," scoffed one well-to-do Palm Beach resident to Canada's Globe and Mail in 2016, adding, "If you can make out a cheque, if you got out of jail yesterday, you're in.”
There was a nasty looking afternoon thunderstorm coming off the Atlantic. A local cameraman who had been shooting a stand-up and some stock footage was loading his gear into the back of an SUV as I stood around smoking and staring at the weather radar from NOAA.
"I guess the circus isn't here today," I joked.
"No, they’re all in Miami, thank God,” he laughed.
The lot at Bingham had become meeting place for supporters for Donald Trump to express their support for the beleaguered former president. Dressed in swag and waving flags, they often gather along the along the 100 ft. length of sidewalk on the West Bound side of Rt. 98. They’d stand around in scorching tempeatures for hours. There's usually a police cruiser parked in the lot to keep an eye on the whole scene.
"I’m a stringer,” I said. “Figured I'd swing through Palm Beach on my way down to Miami. Just in case."
The cameraman shook his with a smile. "No thanks," he said.
"Can I give you some advice," the camera person said before hoping in his truck.
"Sure,” I said. “I've covered this stuff before, but I'm on my own out here. I don’t have a crew or a company backing me."
"Get there early," he said. "There's a ton of crews already down there waiting. Be prepared to sleep in you car. Have some food and a piss bucket."
The general consensus, he cautioned, was that Miami was going to be a shit show.
ONE MORE THING
18:00
After spending two hours driving through a torrential downpour, and another two hours looking for overnight parking, I began to realize that even if I could find a decent parking lot in downtown Miami it probably cost $100. And there was no guarantee my car wouldn't get towed.
And I was less worried about my car getting vandalized or broken into than I was about it getting hauled off by some shifty tow company.
I’d been sitting in a small lot full of pot holes downtown trying to decide what to do. A young woman carrying a small, black rectangular paper shopping bag told me that many lots didn't tow if you were just running into a store. Then she threw on a pair of designer sunglasses and spund around with a swoop of her hair, as if she were the lost grandchild of Lauren Becall.
After finding a temporary refuge in a Win-Dixie parking lot, I was immediately accosted by wild chickens. The damn things were everywhere! Two jumped on the roof of my truck and start scratching and crowing. The damn things eyeballed me as if I had pissed on their rug.
Why the fuck are there so many wild chickens in Miami? They just wandered in and out of all the abandoned construction sites that dotted the city, like loud, obnoxious rats with feathers.
Assuming the day to be a wash, I began making my way out West. Previous trips to Miami have taught me that there's a number of places to creep into at night where I can then crawl into the back of my truck for a few hours of sleep. Besides, it was early enough to where I might still be able to grab a beer to calm my nerves.
Approaching Doral, I noticed a dozen media crews set up in the lot across the street from the Trump National Doral resort. There was one guy standing in front of the entrance wearing a red, long tail coat and a top hat. He was holding a sign that said "Donald Trump/Ron DeSantis 2024."
The man said his name was Gregg Donovan, and said he was the former ambassador of Hollywood, California. Donovan had just flown into Miami International, checked into a hotel, changed and immediately came outside.
"I can't believe I'm the only one out here," Donovan said. There was a tinge of defeat in his voice, as if he expected the streets to be lined with tailgaters waving flags and signs, schilling homemade buttons and bedazzled hats.
"I know they do it at Mar-a-Lago," he said.
"Oh, yeah, there's usually a group of people that stand out there in the parking lot overlooking the place," I told him. "But I just came from there. There wasn't anybody out there."
I could tell he was leering at me from behind his Ray Ban Stories camera-equiped sunglasses.
"But that was around noon," I said, "And there was a big storm rolling in.”
He seemed to perk up, and asked if I would be out at the courthouse tomorrow.
"I'll be there, melting into a puddle and taking pictures," I joked. "Trying to make an honest dollar."
We continued to chat as another storm rolled in. Donovan boasted that he’d met Trump several times and had several photos to mark the occasion(s). I asked him to show me his favorites, expecting a photo of Trump in a suit with flashing a strained smile and a thumbs-up, but they all seemed to be quick snaps from a barricade grip-and-grin.
Some of my colleagues were able to get footage of Trump arriving in Doral to a dozen or so supporters and protesters earlier in the day. Trump properties, I’ve found, are like their Graceland, or Mecca. His supporters will travel far and wide to visit his properties and pay tribute. Most Trump supporters can't afford the entry fees, so they’ll just stand outside in MAGA hats and pose for selfies.