As Mar-a-Lago closes for the summer, Donald Trump will need to find another destination to meet with world leaders and play golf.
That’s likely to be his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, according to Politico. It’s the only one of his golf clubs that he built from the ground up, instead of purchasing and refurbishing, and the president holds a special affinity for it.
Take a look around Bedminster and the club, and get the history of how it came to be one of Trump’s favorite retreats.
Bedminster, New Jersey, is small and sparsely populated. This street is the closest thing the town has to a main street. Only 8,165 live in the entire township, according to the 2010 census.
Between the farmland: luxury gold courses, including Trump National Golf Club Bedminster. Trump bought the land the club stands on in 2002 after buying it from real-estate investors who purchased it in a bankruptcy sale in the 1980s. The price Trump paid was reported to be less than $35 million, and he built the course from scratch. It opened in 2004 on Fourth of July weekend.
The land was formerly known as Lamington Farm, and was famous for being John DeLorean’s home. DeLorean’s Georgian-style manor house was preserved and later converted and expanded into the clubhouse. Additional amenities have been erected around the home, including tennis courts and an 82-foot-long pool.
The club has received accolades. It’s actually two courses, with a total of 36 holes. In 2022, the club is slated to host the PGA Championship. “Certainly when you have courses, when you get acknowledged to have one of the majors … having the PGA is a very, very big deal,” Trump said at a press conference when the announcement was made. The club will also host the 2017 US Women’s Open later this year.
Membership initiation fees at the club can run up to $350,000, according to The New Yorker.
The Club Is A Special Place to Trump. His daughter Ivanka married her husband, Jared Kushner, on the property in 2009. In fact, Trump loves the course so much, he was even looking to be buried there and built a mausoleum with up to 10 plots near the first hole. “Wouldn’t you want to be buried here?” he asked a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. In 2015, a representative for the Trump Organization told a New Jersey newspaper he changed his mind and would like to be buried in Florida instead. The private cemetery was built anyway.
Much like at Mar-a-Lago, Trump has his own private villa on the grounds when he comes to the resort. He often mingles with guests and members while staying at Bedminster, and the club often hosts events like weddings and charity benefits.
Rumors are swirling that Trump will use Bedminster as his weekend getaway in the summer, as Mar-a-Lago will be closed for the season. He already used the property as president-elect to hold meetings on a weekend in November. Only time will tell what that means for the local community and members of the club.