Forecasts: President Donald Trump’ Mar-a-Lago could be in Hurricane Dorian’s path; historic mansion has weathered many storms

When Hurricane Dorian’s projected path shifted a bit to the south overnight, its center-line track appeared Friday to put Palm Beach — and President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago — in its crosshairs.

Although forecasters have cautioned that it’s still too early pinpoint exactly where on Florida’s east coast the potentially fierce storm will strike, the shifted track has renewed attention on the mansion-turned-private club, known to many as Trump’s "winter White House." Trump, as president, has visited the property two dozen times in the winter season and has hosted high-level meetings with world leaders there.

The historic house, built in 1927, stands on 17.5 acres stretching between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. If Dorian comes ashore in or near Palm Beach as a Category 4 storm, as the National Hurricane Center has predicted, Mar-a-Lago and other oceanfront homes could be hit with the storm’s full wrath.

The club’s location hasn’t been ignored this week on social media. On Wednesday, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell tweeted: "I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago!"

On Thursday, she explained that the tweet was related to "Trump’s climate change denial."

pic.twitter.com/ufd7tsGyAx

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2019

The president hadn’t commented publicly on Mar-a-Lago — his longtime home in Palm Beach — in relation to Dorian as of Friday morning. But in a video he tweeted on Thursday, he called Dorian "an absolute monster" and compared it to Hurricane Andrew, the 1992 storm that severely damaged parts of Miami-Dade County.

"All indications are it’s going to hit very hard and it’s going to be very big," Trump said in the video.

>>RELATED: Dorian strengthens, threatens to deliver prolonged assault on Florida

One of Campbell’s tweets on Wednesday referenced cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who built the mansion with her then husband, stockbroker E.F. Hutton.

"Well, we will see if Mrs. Post’s design can stand up to the assault! I know Palm Beach well and am sorry if it gets a big hit," Campbell’s tweet said.

Well, we will see if Mrs. Post’s design can stand up to the assault! I know Palm Beach well and am sorry if it gets a big hit. I wish I cd believe that it wd shake up Trump’s climate change denial! Only today his admin has removed regs to limit methane- a worse GHG than CO2! https://t.co/zwkv87Exec

— Kim Campbell (@AKimCampbell) August 30, 2019

Campbell later on Thursday tweeted: "And no, I don’t wish anyone, anywhere, the horror of being hit by a Category 4 Hurricane. But not everyone can have the protection of a fortress like Mar a Lago, built to be hurricane-proof! Trump will not bear the cost of his immoral abdication of the climate change."

Forecasters still aren’t sure when Hurricane Dorian will reach Florida’s coastline. The hurricane center’s 11 a.m. update Friday said the storm most likely would make landfall late Sunday. The center-line track targeted Palm Beach and Martin counties.

Mar-a-Lago has weathered any number of hurricanes and windstorms in the decades since it was built.

Most recently, in September 2017, a part of the building sustained roof damage and minor roof leaks when the outer bands of Hurricane Irma swept the island. In addition, several trees were knocked down and landscaping was thinned along the property’s south wall. Palm Beach officials at the time confirmed they had received no reports of structural damage to Mar-a-Lago or any building on the island.

A phone call from the Daily News to the club went immediately to voicemail on Monday, and a message was not returned.

One of the reasons the elaborate Mediterranean-style mansion has weathered storms over the years is its strong foundation. The building is literally rock solid: Concrete and steel anchors the structure to the coral reef below it. Many of the walls are 3 feet thick.

"This place will not move," Trump's former butler, Tony Senecal, told the Palm Beach Post in 2005. "That's why, during a hurricane, you'll always see me here. If it goes, I'll go with it." Unlike other historic buildings that have been restored in Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago still uses old-fashioned metal window shutters to protect its vintage windows, including an especially large arched one on the front of the building.

>>RELATED: How did Trump’s Mar-a-Lago fare in Hurricane Irma?

Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in the mid-1980s and lived there. He opened his club there a decade after he bought the property. Trump-related entities also own three houses adjacent to the club property.

The building’s stucco-covered walls have remained standing after each hurricane, including the massive killer storm that wreaked havoc on South Florida's east coast in 1928 and another that flooded the Estate Section and points south in 1947.

More recently, the building withstood the double whammy of back-to-back Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004 and, a year later, Hurricane Wilma, which surprised locals with its strength when it barreled in from the west.

"We lost a lot of the vegetation that gave Mar-a-Lago its character," Trump told the Palm Beach Post following Hurricane Frances. "I wasn't there for the storm, but I've been told by my people there that it re-landscaped the place. There was a little flooding in some of the basements, too."

Trump bought Mar-a-Lago, the mansion built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, in 1985 at age 39 from her foundation for a price recorded at $5 million, reportedly paying several million more for the furnishings. A decade later, after pouring millions of dollars into its restoration, he opened The Mar-a-Lago Club, retaining residential quarters to use for himself and family members.

Post understood the importance of making sure her house — the second she owned in Palm Beach — would have a solid foundation for its 128 rooms. Concrete and steel anchors the structure to the coral reef below it. Many of the walls are 3 feet thick.

The house's architecture is an elaborate mix of Spanish, Moorish, Portuguese and Venetian influences, thanks to the work of architect Marion Sims Wyeth and Broadway set designer Joseph Urban. It is said to have taken 600 workers and artisans to complete the two-year project, which broke ground in 1925.

>>RELATED: How Marjorie Merriweather Post built and used Mar-a-Lago

Spared in by 1928 hurricane

Among the worst hurricanes Mar-a-Lago has endured was the unnamed 1928 storm, which made landfall in September near West Palm Beach. With winds estimated at 145 mph, the storm destroyed more than 1,700 homes and generated a storm surge that caused Lake Okeechobee to burst some 45 miles away, drowning as many as 2,500 people.

In Palm Beach, the storm washed out the coastal road that hugged the beachfront on the north end of the island, across town from Mar-a-Lago north end of the island. Farther south, the storm also swept away much of the beach, pushing the shoreline inland by more than 200 feet near Mar-a-Lago and in front of the then-new Bath & Tennis Club.

The 1928 hurricane's damage to Post's home mostly was confined to uprooted trees, although she reported damage to an expansive Roman-style window.

Today, the staff at Mar-a-Lago prepares for hurricanes in much the same way that other Palm Beach property owners do, including removing or securing outdoor furnishings and other items — such as sculptures — that could become wind-borne missiles during a storm. Property owners also might lower the water levels in the swimming pool and place sandbags in front of outside doors, especially important in low-lying areas. Full-house generators were rarities in Palm Beach before the storms of 2004 and 2005 but are now commonplace; owners often give their generators a test-run in anticipation of electricity outages following a storm.

During Trump's restoration project in the 1990s, Mar-a-Lago's original windows were carefully preserved and restored, including a number of elaborately gilded ones in the main room, according to architect Tamara Peacock of The Tamara Peacock Co., based in Fort Lauderdale.

"We reconditioned and kept the original windows," Peacock told the Daily News in 2016, a few days before Hurricane Matthew made an unexpected wobble Palm Beach County’s coast that sent it northward before making landfall near St. Augustine. That wobble spared the county, which had for days been targeted by the storm.

"The quality of the existing windows is part of the architectural heritage," Peacock said three years ago.

In the decade after the club opened, Trump added other facilities, including a grand new ballroom and the Beach Club on Mar-a-Lago's ocean parcel. Windows in those buildings meet the new codes for impact resistance.

In 2016, Peacock said Mar-a-Lago is better equipped to withstand a storm as many vintage buildings.

"I’ve seen quite a number of historic houses during my career," she said. "It's the most well-built."

dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com

@PBDN_hofheinz