At the time of her death in 1973, Post bequeathed the property to the National Park Service,[6] hoping it could be used for state visits or as a Winter White House.

[citation needed] Hutton and Post regularly used Mar-a-Lago as their winter residence, typically staying from mid January to late March.

[18] A contemporary report prepared by the Department of the Interior attributed its significance to providing "an excellent picture of winter resort life in Palm Beach prior to the Depression".

[15] Post, who died in 1973, willed the 17-acre (6.9 ha) estate to the United States government as a Winter White House for presidents and visiting foreign dignitaries.

[45][46] It still frequently hosted the International Red Cross Ball, an annual "white tie, tails, and tiara" event founded by Post.

Giuffre would later go on to make accusations against Maxwell and Epstein for sex trafficking her to clients including Prince Andrew and Alan Dershowitz.

[59] He also conducted interviews for a replacement National Security Advisor and named General H. R. McMaster as Michael Flynn's, who had recently been terminated,[66] successor on February 20, 2017.

[66] After President Trump's fourth weekend visit on March 3–5, 2017, questions were raised about the access his paying club members have to him and his entourage.

[67] Subsequently, the "Mar-a-Lago Act" was introduced, legislation requiring publication of logs of visitors at the White House and other places where the president conducts business.

On April 4, 2017, prior to Xi's visit, ShareAmerica, a website run by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs, published a blog post describing Mar-a-Lago's history.

[75][76] On April 24, 2017, Democratic senator Ron Wyden, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, and ethics observers like former ambassador Norman Eisen, questioned the use of official government resources promoting a private property owned by Trump.

[84] Also at the dinner was Bolsonaro's press secretary, Fábio Wajngarten [pt], whose wife informed others on social media on March 11, 2020, that he had tested positive for COVID-19 after he had returned from the United States via Miami to Brazil.

[93][94][95] Mar-a-Lago was the location of watch parties for Trump and close allies for the 2022 United States elections on November 8, 2022 and for Super Tuesday on March 5, 2024.

[99] Seeking to preserve presidential communications and correspondence with world leaders, the National Archives and Records Administration arranged to retrieve 15 boxes of material from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022.

Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dana White and Vivek Ramaswamy were all at the Mar-a-Lago events, as well as foreign political figures such as Nigel Farage and Eduardo Bolsonaro.

[107][108] Following his election to a second term as President of the United States, Mar-a-Lago became the base for the second presidential transition of Donald Trump as the president-elect made decisions on the nomination of people for his upcoming administration.

The house is topped by a seventy-five foot, tile-roofed tower containing bedrooms, baths, and an observation deck with an extensive view of Palm Beach.

[15] Among the imported materials used were three boatloads of Doria limestone from Genoa visible in the exterior wall facing, some interior structures, arches, and the Barwig sculptures.

In 2012, reportedly in response to reduced demand following the Bernie Madoff scandal which affected many affluent Palm Beach residents, the fee was lowered to $100,000.

[115][116] Members as of 2017 include oil executive Bill Koch, financier Thomas Peterffy, New Jersey Democratic Party leader George Norcross, lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, real estate developers Bruce E. Toll and Richard LeFrak, media executive Christopher Ruddy, talk show host Howie Carr, talk show host Michael Savage's wife, and NFL coach Bill Belichick.

[116] In protest against Trump's remarks on the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, six nonprofit organizations canceled scheduled gala events at the club.

In January 2017, Florida inspectors noted 15 infractions that included unsafe seafood, insufficiently refrigerated meats, rusty shelving, and cooks without hairnets.

[118] However, according to Florida department of Business and Professional Regulation spokesman, Stephen Lawson, "The infractions were corrected on site, and the establishment was immediately brought into compliance.

[119] On March 30, 2019, Yujing Zhang, a Chinese national, was arrested and charged with unlawful entry to the premises and making false statements to federal law enforcement officials.

[122] In August 2022, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that a Ukrainian-born Russian speaker who used a fake name and claimed to be a Rothschild family heiress had frequented the residence over a year's time, even posing there for photos with Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham.

[130] In November 1996, Trump asked the Palm Beach council to lift the restrictions contained in the agreement that limited media photography, filmmaking, land sales, membership, and traffic at the club, and prevented him from applying for tax exemptions on the property for three years.

[133] Trump first filed such a lawsuit in 1995; that action was settled in 1996, with the county agreeing to collaborate with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and to change flight patterns so the noisiest jet aircraft flew over a wider area.

[133] Trump filed a third suit against the county in January 2015, seeking $100 million in damages for "creating an unreasonable amount of noise, emissions and pollutants at Mar-a-Lago".

[133] Trump claims that officials pressured the FAA to direct air traffic to PBI over Mar-a-Lago in a "deliberate and malicious" act.

[136][21] In January 2017, Palm Beach exempted Mar-a-Lago from a ban on landing helicopters on residential properties while Trump was president, including his own fleet and Marine One.