New York City’s biggest developer promises Palos Verdes the country’s best golf course, or else…
Editor’s note: In December 2002, current Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump addressed Palos Verdes leaders and residents at his newly acquired Peninsula golf course about his “weekend project,” as he described it. The following story about that visit originally appeared in the December 2002 Peninsula People.
Ocean Trails golf course in Palos Verdes looked like fabled St. Andrew’s – “18 blind holes in 80 acres of wind,” as Ocean Trails’ designer Pete Dye once described golf’s Scottish birthplace when comparing the relative difficulty of the two courses. Ocean Trail’s ocean view, which the legendary golf course designer said is the course’s greatest asset, had disappeared in the wind-driven rain. But worse than the rain was the fog that shut down the course even to east coast golfers like Donald Trump, for whom wet weather is just another hazard.
Trump was at Ocean Trails to tell Rancho Palos Verdes officials and residents his plan for making his latest acquisition “the best golf course in the United States.”
Not that this was news. Anyone who had heard Trump speak previously would have been prepared for his application of superlatives to any project with his name attached. But what makes this mannerism so maddening is that the superlatives are usually appropriate.
When news reports quoted him as saying his latest supermodel girlfriend Melania Knauss is so beautiful that when he enters a restaurant with her “grown men weep,” who could argue? In fact, even without a supermodel on his arm, Trump must have made the roomful of overachieving RPV leaders, male and female, feel like weeping over their own inadequacies as they listened to him describe the $200 million-plus Ocean Trails development as a “weekend project.” He did, at least, concede that he regards the pride of the peninsula as a “diamond.”
Even if it’s not deliberate, just about everything about Trump fuels envy, even his divorce settlement. The pre-nuptial agreement with his first supermodel wife Ivana called for a $10 million lump sum payment, $350,000 annually until death (unless she remarried), a $4 million housing allowance, and $100,000 annually for each of the couple’s three children. When the couple divorced in the early ‘90s she contended that wasn’t enough. His attorneys told her it was better than nothing, which they told her was the alternative.
Real estate is to New York what oil is to Texas, an increasing rare, increasingly valuable commodity. As New York City’s largest developer hunched his 6-six-foot-3 frame over the microphone to address the biggest audience ever to attend a City of Rancho Palos Verdes Community Leaders Breakfast, his tailored, navy blue suit and wide, powder blue tie that accented his blue eyes gave him the appearance of a professional athlete, which the former high school baseball team captain and seven-handicap golfer no doubt could be, if he wanted to be.
Trump’s New York City properties include the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street, a 72-story tower across the street from the News York Stock exchange. Trump International Hotel and Tower at One Central Park East, and the Trump World Tower at the United Nations Plaza.
He owns three Atlantic City casinos — the billion dollar Trump Taj Majal, Trump Plaza and Trump Marina – a casino outside Chicago and one in Twenty Nine Palms. He also owns the top rated golf course in golf crazed Florida, the top rated golf course in upstate New York, and is building what he promises will be the top ranked golf course in the wealthiest community in the tri-state area of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.
Yet, if one is to believe what he told RPV residents Saturday morning, when Ocean Trails is finished, no other community in the country, not even rival peninsula Monterrey, home to the country’s number one ranked Pebble Beach, will have as fine a golf course. (Competition between the two peninsulas extends to rival car shows. Pebble Beach’s Concourse d’ Elegance is recognized as the country’s most important show, but the Palos Verdes Concourse d’ Elegance narrows the gap with each year.)
The power of positive thinking
Following his talk a reporter asked Trump what accounted for his divine self-confidence.
He looked uncharacteristically puzzled by the question and allowed that he had never thought about it before. Then he said simply, “That’s the way I’ve always been.”
Several questions later, he returned to the subject.
“It’s just the fact that what I do tends to come out to be the best. A year from now, when I finish this course, you’ll see. Two years ago people thought I was crazy when I said I’d have the best course in upstate New York. But you saw what Rick Remsynder wrote and he’s the best golf writer in New York.”
Every place setting at the breakfast had a copy of the New York Journal News’s recent golf supplement with a story ranking the new Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff the “Best local course.” Underlined in yellow Highlighter was the statement, “In short, it blows Winged Foot away.” Winged Foot had been recognized as upstate New York’s premier course for decades.
Only a fool would have worried that Trump would be depressed by winter’s first weekend rain falling on the very morning he planned to unveil his plans for Ocean Trails in the ornate clubhouse overlooking the course and the Catalina Channel.
“Bad weather at the start of a development always brings luck,” Trump declared.
He has weathered worse conditions.
Barely more than 10 years ago, when real estate went south and the one time billionaire’s balance sheet showed billions in brackets, he called a meeting of his New York bankers, who were not amused by the fact that that he was still flying home on weekends in his Boeing 727 to his 100,000 square-foot Palm Beach resort while his failing empire was threatening them with insolvency.
In his third best seller Trump: The Art of the Comeback,” he writes that he told the bankers “in as nice a way as possible, that I was in deep financial trouble and that on top of that, I wanted more money, about $65 million.”
Should the banks chose instead to cut their losses, he cautioned them, “I can tie you guys up for years in court proceedings, bankruptcy filings, and other legal maneuvers…”
Enough of his creditors went along for Trump to get his $65 million line of credit. As for those who lacked faith, he wrote, “During the bad times, I learned who was loyal and who wasn’t. I believe in an eye for an eye. A couple of people who betrayed me need my help now, and I am screwing them against the wall. I am doing a number…and I’m having so much fun.” A lot of fun, evidently, because he names a lot of names in his book.
Financial types aren’t the only ones Trump targets for disappointing him. A Wall Street Journal reporter who wrote critical stories about the Atlantic casinos, saw his journalism career destroyed when Trump honored the reporter’s request for complimentary tickets to the George Foreman-Evander Holyfield fight at Trump Plaza, as well as a room at the Trump Taj Majal. After the fight Trump reported the reporter’s breech of ethics to his editors.
The pony Trump found in his personal liquidity crisis in the early ‘90s was that other developers were buried just as deep, which meant that the market was flooded with distressed properties. Shortly after Trump arm wrestled the banks for his $65 million line of credit, he purchased the 72 Story 40 Wall Street for $1 million from a Hong Kong developer who had paid nearly $100 million for the building just a few years earlier. Similar acquisition followed, in rapid succession.
Happy trails
Though Ocean Trails is at the opposite end of the continent from Trump’s usual hunting grounds, his acquisition of the golf course has the appearance, almost, of inevitability.
Waiting for the bankers to respond to his ultimatums, left him in the previously unfamiliar position of having time on his hands.
“That’s when I decided I’d take up golf again. It helped me relax and concentrate… And it certainly beat hanging around the office waiting for the phone to ring,” he writes in The Art of the Comeback.
One of the banks Trump developed a close relationship with during his comeback was Credit Suisse First Boston.
A typical day at the office, he writes, begins at 9 a.m: “My first call is to Andy Stone and Bill Admaski, two of the most brilliant guys on Wall Street, who invest huge amounts of money for Credit Suisse First Boston.” The book was published in 1997.
Coincidentally, in Dec. 1997, the Palos Verdes’ Zuckermen brothers borrowed $56 million from Credit Suisse First Boston and the following month broke ground on Ocean Trails.
Two years later, on June 2, 1999, 30 days from the scheduled grand opening, a 16 acre crevice on the property swallowed a bulldozer and stranded a worker and his dog on the 18th hole. The hole moved 50 feet as the crow flies, and 10 feet as the fish dives in the direction of the Pacific Ocean.
In January of 2002, following $60 million dollars in land stabilization efforts, the Zuckermans lost the property in bankruptcy to Credit Suisse.
During Saturday’s breakfast, which was attended by Ken Zuckerman, Trump graciously praised the brothers for their efforts and expressed his sympathy to them.
“They worked long and hard, but as happens with all of us, sometimes things don’t work out,” Trump said.
He also said he and the community owed a debt of thanks to Credit Suisse First Boston for helping fund the road leading to the course, and rebuilding hole 18. “They took a pounding on this site…I never saw as much over design as went into repairing number 18. If there’s a hurricane, I want to be on that land,” Trump said.
When the Zuckerman’s lost control of the property, the most logical buyer appeared to be the father and son team of Bob and Rob Lowe, owners of Destination Development Corporation. Their 24 hotels and condominium include San Diego’s Hotel Coronado and San Francisco’s Argent Hotel.
The Lowes expressed strong interest in acquiring the golf course to compliment the 400-room, Long Point resort [Terranea] they are planning to build on the old Marineland site, just down the road from Ocean Trails..
But the golf course without city approval for the hotel made no sense. In August, just one month before the Lowe’s were to receive city approval for their hotel, Trump entered escrow on the golf course.
Trump told Orange County Golf magazine that he learned about the course from the publicity it received when the 18th hole moved west.
He told the golf course staff, in his first meeting with them, “All this course needs is money and imagination. And I’ve got both.”
“He knew a lot about the golf course,” Ken Zuckerman told the magazine.
Consistent with Trump’s east coast properties, Ocean Trails occupies a premium location and its previous owners ran out of money, after investing millions in its development.
Before Ocean Trails, the most expensive golf course ever built was the $45 million Trump International in Palm Beach Florida. Before Ocean Trails’ 18th hole was repaired, the most expensive golf hole ever built was the 13th, with its 100-foot waterfall, at Trump National in Briarcliff Manor, New York.
Trump has declined to say what he paid for Ocean Trails. At the breakfast he said the payment was “complicated.” Then he added, in an uncharacteristic understatement that he paid “substantially” less than the more than $200 million already invested in the course.
Good or best
Though he is starting with Pete Dye’s design in his quest to usurp Pebble Beach, Trump acknowledged Saturday, that a great ocean view, even from every hole, does not make a great course.
Great holes make great courses, like Pebble Beach’s 18th with its dogleg around the Pacific, and Riviera’s 18th with its small green and long, sloping fairway.
Ocean Trail’s fairways snake with the predictability of switchbacks down a 500-yard wide slope that falls off an ear-popping 250 yards in elevation. The natural habitat mandated by the State Coastal Commission offers little in the way of physical or visual delineation between fairways.
The Zuckerman’s spent two years uprooting “invasive” plants and replacing them with 125,000 “native” plants.
Dye was so frustrated by the landscaping limitations, which included a 15-foot height limit, that he is rumored to have considered not putting his name on the course.
“They wanted native grasses that were never here before. There was dirt and kids on dirt bikes and not much more. Ken Zuckerman had the patience of Job to work with those government agencies,” Dye said when his work was done.
Trump, when asked about the native habitat, responded, “You mean all those beautiful bushes? Ten years ago we didn’t call it native habitat.”
Then in demonstration of his deference to the Coastal Commission, and nature’s deference to him, he pointed out the site’s abundance of Palos Verdes stone, which is widely used by landscapers.
“We have huge piles of it, for nothing. We plan a tremendous amount of sculpting with the rock,” he said. Trump presented two alternative plans for Ocean Trails to the residents and city officials attending the breakfast.
“We could open the course as is, with a little tweaking. Tiger Wood’s dad played the course, and after the first hole he told our very fine greens keeper Martin Howard that this is a lousy course. It took him three or four holes to realize this is a great course because the number one hole is defective. But by moving the maintenance shed and making number one a little longer, we’ll make it a great first hole and a very good course.”
A few changes to the 10th hole could make it the equal of Pebble Beach’s signature number 8, Trump said. And then he would be ready to start building the 75 homes already approved by the city and Coastal Commission.
Or, Trump proposed, “We could go a step beyond, not in terms of dollars for me, but because it’s the right thing to do. Instead of 75 homes, we lose 20 of them to make way for a driving range. At $1 million per lot, we’d have the most expensive driving range in the world, as well as the most expensive hole, and the most expensive golf course.
But you can’t have a great course without a driving range.”
“The bad news,” he said, “is we’re going to block some views. But if the neighbors sue, we’ll kick their asses.” he said. Still, even for the neighbors whose views might be blocked, Trump promises a silver lining. In Comeback he writes that the neighbors who tied up his Briarcliff Manor, New York course for six and a half years, ultimately thanked him “for tripling their property values.”
One thing the course doesn’t need, contrary to popular wisdom, is a hotel, he said.
“This is very much a Los Angeles course. LA is not aware of Palos Verdes. But I arrived here from the Ritz Carlton in Beverly Hills in under 30 minutes.”
That assertion raised eyebrows from the many guests who took nearly that much time to reach the breakfast from their homes on the Peninsula. But even if the time estimate was a result of positive thinking, Trump noted that golfers routinely drive several hours to play great courses.
Alpha and the omega
Following his talk, during a tour of the property with staff members, Trump exhibited an exhaustive attention to detail that in one breath had him picking the color scheme for the clubhouse window frames (an aide suggested replacing the frames, Trump said just lightened the dark green paint), and in the next breath weighing the pros and cons of LA real estate magnate John Cushman’s proposal that he build a Trump Tower in Los Angeles. Asked about the likelihood of the latter, he answered. “One thing often leads to another.”
During a photo shoot with photographers from three different publications, Trump cooperated with each photographer’s shouts with the practiced poses of a professional actor, accompanied by a firm direction that they not use wide angle lenses.
German poet and scientist Johann Goethe’s observation that thought paralyzes, and action narrows explains why so many great artists and athletes are unable to manage the ordinary aspects of their lives, while great managers are often boring.
Trump, in explaining his success during an interview following the breakfast, described himself as an exception to this rule.
“There are people with grand ideas who can’t implement them, and people who are great implementers, but who have no imagination. I have imagination and the ability to implement my ideas. It’s a rare combination,” he said
When OC Golf Magazine asked if he were a golf club, what club would he be, Trump answered, “I’d guess it’d be a driver, but that’s not really the ballgame. The whole deal is in that last putt. So I’d say I’m a combination driver and putter.”
Following his breakfast talk, Trump read questions submitted by the audience in writing on index cards.
One of the cards said unabashedly, “You are the most important person I’ve ever seen in this area. Thank you for honoring us.”
The audience responded with embarrassed titters. Trump shrugged.
He said he would prefer to make the club private — his east coast clubs command $300,000 membership fees – but he didn’t want to take the time to fight the Coastal Commission, which insists the club remain public.
“I think I could win, but it take a long time,” he said.
Asked, “Will you change the name from Ocean Trails to Trump National Golf Club?” the man whose red, white and blue Boeing 727 has his surname painted large on either side of the fuselage, answered with characteristic directness, “Who’s the smart person who asked that question?”
Editor’s note: Then, as now, Donald Trump had a polarizing effect on people. Following are letters sent to Peninsula People following publication of the December 2002 Trump profile.
Dear Peninsula People:
As a lifelong resident of the Palos Verdes Peninsula I was both appalled and repulsed by the cover article “Trump This” of the Peninsula People (December 2002), featuring Donald Trump. That it is a fluff piece is a given since Peninsula People is not known for its hard-hitting journalism. However, writer Kevin Cody’s fawning tone was a mystery. Is he working for Trump? It wouldn’t surprise me since Trump is quoted as bragging that he destroyed the career of one Wall Street Journal reporter who dared write critical articles, that “a couple of people” who didn’t come to his aid during his period of bankruptcy he is “screwing them against the wall…and I’m having so much fun.”
Cody writes that “just about everything about Trump fuels unnatural envy, even his divorce settlement.” This, he says, because Trump’s lawyers intimidated his ex-wife, the mother of his three children, by telling her to take what she was offered, which was “better than nothing,” which they convinced her, was her alternative. Somehow, I don’t find much to envy in this man. He has taken over a golf course on a site in Rancho Palos Verdes (“a 16 acre crevice opened up swallowing a bulldozer”) that residents have always known to be unstable as it is slowly sliding into the Pacific. However, he said, he plans to spend another $25 million in improvements and have the course open again in June. “’The bad news,’ he said, is we’re going to block some views. But if the neighbors sue, we’ll kick their asses.’”
Cody writes “Trump must have made the roomful of overachieving RPV leaders, male and female, feel like weeping over their own inadequacies as they listened to him… “ Yes, I do feel like weeping, only it is not over my own inadequacies.
Lisa Riera
Rolling Hills Estates
Dear Peninsula People:
I feel that I should point out to you that the Briarcliff and Winged Foot golf courses are in Briarcliff Manor and Mamaroneck, New York, respectively. Both are in Westchester County, one of the southernmost of all New York counties and are not in “upstate” New York. I believe that most people from that part of the country, as I am, would say that no place south of Albany qualifies as “upstate.”
Jim Halloran
Redondo Beach
