FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club will partially reopen to members this weekend as South Florida slowly reopens from the coronavirus lockdown.
An email sent Thursday to members says the Palm Beach resort’s Beach Club restaurant, its pool and its whirlpool will reopen Saturday after being closed two months, but its main building that includes hotel rooms, the main dining area and the president’s private residence will remain closed. Members will have to practice social distancing and lounge chairs will be set 6 feet apart. They will have to bring their own towels.
The email was first reported by The Washington Post. The Trump Organization did not return a call seeking comment and a security guard who answered at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday afternoon said no administrators were available.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a close ally of the president, has been slowly allowing the state to reopen, with the hard-hit counties of South Florida trailing the rest of the state. Restaurants in Palm Beach County, like most of the state, can operate at 25% capacity indoors and must maintain 6 feet between tables outdoors. DeSantis is expected to soon boost the capacity limit to 50%. Bars and nightclubs are closed.
Mar-a-Lago executives told Florida officials last month that it was temporarily laying off 153 workers because of the shutdown, a decision the president defended at the time.
“You can’t have many hundreds of employees standing around doing nothing,” he said April 21. “There’s no customer. You’re not allowed to have a customer.”
Palm Beach County has had nearly 4,300 confirmed COVID-19 cases since early March and at least 263 deaths.
Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago from the foundation of cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1985 for $10 million and has invested tens of millions of dollars improving the property. He opened it as a club in 1995.
The property now boasts 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms, a 20,000-square-foot ballroom, tennis and croquet courts and three bomb shelters.
