At the dawn of Trump 2.0, Palm Beach is once again the center of America’s political universe. Here’s a look at the rock stars, politicians and business bigwigs who are neighbors of the 45th—and 47th—president.
By Chase Peterson-Withorn, Staff
Mar-a-Lago was abuzz on election night, with Donald Trump counting his votes from his gilded ballroom, flanked by Tucker Carlson, UFC boss Dana White and Elon Musk. Also partying with Trump were several of his neighbors, including Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart (net worth: $30 billion), who paid $66 million in 2022 for a mansion just up the road, and Steve Wynn, the casino billionaire ($3.7 billion) who shelled out $13 million in December for a half-acre property across the water from Mar-a-Lago.
Palm Beach, Florida, has been a haven for America’s richest since Standard Oil tycoon Henry Flagler built the Florida East Coast Railway in the 1890s and built the iconic Breakers hotel. The exclusive town—full-time population: 9,200—has seduced an array of notables including the Vanderbilts, the Kennedys and Sylvester Stallone with its heady mix of sunshine, sand and low taxes. There are fewer than 2,500 homes in town, only a fraction with a coveted ocean view.
Scores of top donors have homes on this ritzy, 16-mile stretch of Florida coast, as well as Trump pals both old (former U.K. ambassador and NY Jets co-owner Woody Johnson, ex-commerce secretary Wilbur Ross) and new. Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s nominee to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, has a house in the area. So does John Phelan (nominee for Navy secretary) and Todd Blanche (deputy attorney general). Steve Witkoff, co-chair of Trump’s inauguration committee and his pick for Middle East envoy, is developing a resort across the lagoon in West Palm Beach with Soviet-born billionaire investor Len Blavatnik. Fox News host Bret Baier paid $37 million for a 6,700-square-foot Palm Beach mansion in 2023, while Sean Hannity upgraded his $5 million townhouse to a $23.5 million spread in nearby Manalapan in November.
Inventory is tight. With Trump expected to once again jet into town to spend weekends at his “Winter White House,” everyone from administration hopefuls and the U.S. Secret Service to the apolitical rich are flooding the market,. helping push the average price of a single-family home up 38% year-over-year, according to The Corcoran Group. “The day after the election,” says realtor Dana Koch, “it was like someone turned on a faucet.”
“They’re flocking to the president,” says Mar-a-Lago member Hilary Musser, who recently listed a nearby 10,000-square-foot mansion—with a second-story pool and “Ferrari leather” closets—for $36 million. Adds realtor Christian Angle: “There’s been an absolute sense of euphoria.”
In all, found at least 50 billionaires and celebrities, worth a combined $500 billion, who keep a home (or home away from home) in Trump’s neighborhood.
They’re not all Trump fans. Residents of Palm Beach County (which Trump actually lost in 2016, 2020 and, narrowly, 2024) have long complained about road closures and security sweeps when Trump’s in town, and some tried to prevent him from moving in full-time when he left office in 2021. Some prominent Dem donors such as sports mogul Avram Glazer and real estate billionaire Neil Bluhm are also Palm Beachers, as is one of Trump’s nearest neighbors, Jeff Greene—the billionaire former Mar-a-Lago member who burned some $30 million trying to win the 2018 Democratic primary to take on Ron DeSantis for the Florida governorship.
Here are some of the most notable, including our next president, listed in order of appraised or estimated values of their Palm Beach properties.
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Ken Griffin
Appraised value: $768 million
The billionaire hedge fund titan who gave more than $100 million to Republican candidates in the 2024 cycle lives in Miami, but looms large over Palm Beach, where he has spent an incredible $500 million buying and knocking down mansions near Mar-a-Lago to assemble a massive 28-acre estate, on which he’s building a home for his 77-year-old mother.
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Donald Trump
Estimated value: $375 million (before debt)
Trump scored Mar-a-Lago—built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s—for an estimated $10 million in 1985, or about $30 million adjusted for inflation. He turned it into a country club whose members are said to include New York Knicks boss James Dolan, author James Patterson and football coaching legend Bill Belichick. Now worth north of $342 million net of debt, it’s Trump’s single most valuable real estate holding. He owns three other homes nearby, too, including his late sister Maryanne Trump Barry’s eight-bedroom mansion across the street, purchased for $18.5 million during his first presidency.
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Nelson Peltz
Appraised value: $372 million
The billionaire investor hosted a wedding for the ages at Montsorrel—his historic 25,000-square-foot oceanfront home built by Georgia O’Keeffe’s sister—in 2022, when his daughter Nicola married Brooklyn Beckham, son of soccer superstar David Beckham and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham. He’s also the proud parent behind a different tie-up: Peltz claims to have played “matchmaker” between Trump and his new pal Musk.
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John Paulson
Appraised value: $112 million
Famed for shorting subprime mortgages ahead of the 2007 crash, the billionaire has bet big on Trump, including hosting a $50.5 million fundraiser for him in April 2024 at the ocean-to-lake compound he bought in 2021 for $110 million. Paulson was floated as a possible pick for Treasury secretary but backed out, citing his “complex financial obligations.”
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Jeff Greene
Appraised value: $100 million
The real estate and investing billionaire—who is a former member of Mar-a-Lago—didn’t support Trump in 2024, but does see a silver lining to the election, telling : “There’s no question in my mind that having West Palm Beach on everyone’s television screens all over the world is only going to help our brand and our city.”
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Tommy Hilfiger
Appraised value: $96 million
The fashion designer’s oceanfront Coral House is a 21,000-square-foot spread worthy of a picture book—and he’s reportedly releasing one, Hilfiger Homes, this year—that he has dressed in floral prints, palm tree sculptures and works by Warhol and Picasso.
Thomas Peterffy
Appraised value: $96 million
A reluctant Trump backer, the digital trading billionaire behind Interactive Brokers has an 11,000-square-foot home on a six-acre lot he purchased for $23 million in 2011. He urged Republicans to find a different candidate in 2024 but quickly came back around once the writing was on the wall, attending a Trump fundraiser in Aspen, Colorado, in August and donating some $15 million to GOP efforts.
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Stephen Schwarzman
Appraised value: $78 million
The chair of Trump’s short-lived business advisory council in 2017, Schwarzman initially said he would not support his longtime friend in 2024 but backtracked in May. The billionaire Wall Street titan, who cofounded $218 billion (market cap) Blackstone, owns a 15,000-square-foot home with views of the Atlantic and Lake Worth Lagoon and sits on the board of the Palm Beach Civic Association.
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Rod Stewart
Appraised value: $66 million
The rock star has kept a sunshine-yellow mansion on South Ocean Boulevard since 1995, putting him in Trump’s orbit for years. “I used to go to his Christmas party and the balls he held, but my wife said ‘no,’” Stewart told Scottish Field magazine in 2023.
Sylvester Stallone
Appraised value: $48 million
The MAGA A-lister, who Trump named a “special ambassador to Hollywood” this week, bought an 11,000-square-foot pad for $35 million in 2020 but got off to a rocky start with his neighbors, who opposed his plan to build a floating barrier around his property to fend off seaweed, trash—and prying eyes. He scrapped the plan in December.
