FDR also had a 'Winter White House' — for treating kids with polio

The Trump administration has dubbed Mar-a-Lago the "Winter White House," a sunny respite from the dreary swamp of Washington. President Trump owns the resort, and his frequent visits have come under fire for their cost to taxpayers, potential for conflicts of interest, and comparative lack of transparency.

Still, as historian Joshua Zeitz documents at Politico, Trump is not the first president to have a private escape:

Perhaps the most comparable presidential retreat, however, belonged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who owned and often visited a luxury resort in Warm Springs, Georgia. But there was one big difference between the Warm Springs facility and Mar-a-Lago: "FDR built his club to care for people stricken by polio — many of them poor, and most of them children."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The hotel and its sprawling grounds were a resort and care facility at once, and FDR, also a polio victim, raised money or personally picked up the tab for polio patients who could not afford the $42 weekly rate (equivalent to about $600 today).

Roosevelt eventually sold the resort to a foundation he created, "thus replenishing FDR's personal fortune," but he continued to stump for donations after the sale.