Membership at Mar-a-Lago has long been seen as an advantage for securing an audience with the club’s owner, former president Donald Trump. The cost for this exclusive access is on the rise for new members.
In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Trump discussed topics from his line of Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to a potential role for JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as Treasury Secretary, and the defense of Taiwan. He briefly mentioned the cost of membership at his Palm Beach, Florida, club.
Trump recounted that when Mar-a-Lago opened in 1994, the initial membership fee was $25,000. This fee increased to $200,000 but was halved in 2012 following the Bernie Madoff scandal, which affected many wealthy Palm Beach residents. By 2017, shortly after Trump’s inauguration, the fee returned to $200,000 and has grown since.
Bernd Lembcke, Trump’s longtime club manager, said that memberships now start at $700,000—more than triple the cost during the early days of Trump’s presidency. In October, just before the elections, this fee will increase by $300,000.
“In October, we are raising the membership fee to $1 million because we only have four memberships to sell, so we are not desperate,” Lembcke stated.
The Palm Beach Post has noted that annual dues are just under $20,000. Memberships at Mar-a-Lago are capped at 500.
Mar-a-Lago, occasionally dubbed the “Winter White House” during Trump’s term, has been a gateway for the affluent and influential to connect with the former president.
“The Mar-a-Lago club has become a pay-for-access to the president club, with a president who has little knowledge of governmental policy,” Robert Weissman, president of the pro-transparency group Public Citizen, told The Guardian in 2019.
For instance, when Trump was president, he planned to deport Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, a critic of the Chinese Communist Party. However, staff informed him that Wengui was a Mar-a-Lago member, leading Trump to cancel the deportation. Recently, Wengui was convicted by a U.S. jury for a massive multiyear fraud.
Trump appointed at least four Mar-a-Lago members as ambassadors, including Lana Marks as ambassador to South Africa and Robin Bernstein as ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Trump’s dentist, Albert Hazzouri, wrote a note to Trump on Mar-a-Lago stationery, addressing him as “King” and supporting a proposal for veteran’s care. Trump subsequently forwarded the note to his Secretary of Veteran Affairs.
The club has also been a focal point for national security concerns, including a dismissed case over Trump storing classified documents there.
In 2017, when Trump dined with the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the club, they met with aides in full view of other diners. Club members took photos of the leaders discussing national security, reading documents, and using flashlights on them, according to CNN. Members also overheard Trump on his cellphone.
Additionally, two women have been either arrested or accused of trespassing on the property. In 2019, 33-year-old Shanghai businesswoman Yujing Zhang was arrested for trespassing. When apprehended, she possessed four cellphones, a laptop, a thumb drive, and an external hard drive.