Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club, has hosted some of the most lavish and expensive New Year’s Eve parties in Palm Beach.
Although the White House hasn't confirmed whether President Donald Trump will host his annual, red-carpet New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago, word is the party is on — and with the president in town — he likely will attend.
Here’s a look back at the galas.
2018
Last year the president missed his New Year's Eve party because of the government shutdown. First lady Melania Trump kept the tradition alive, hosting the party without her husband.
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Ticket prices have gone up every year since the president was elected. Last year, members of the president's private club paid $650 for tickets, up from $600 in 2017 and $525 in 2016. Guests of Mar-a-Lago members were asked to pay $1,000 up from $750 in 2017 and $575 in 2016, the Post reported.
2017
An estimated 800 people attended 2017 event, when the president last celebrated New Years Eve at Mar-a-Lago. Among those who also walked the red carpet were Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former baseball star Keith Hernandez, casino owner Steve Wynn and media personalities Lou Dobbs and Dr. Gina Loudon.
The president predicted a “fantastic 2018” as he arrived to ring in 2018.
>>Trump in Palm Beach: VIPs flock to New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago
On the menu was Maine lobster ravioli, sliced tenderloin, sea bass, “Trump Iceberg Wedge,” and for dessert, the traditional New Year’s Eve dish, baked Alaska.
The band Party on the Moon played. The band had played at Mar-a-Lago’s New Year’s Eve galas since 2009 and was then-rated the top party band for weddings, private and corporate events by Vogue Magazine.
2016
For this New Year’s Eve celebration, party-goers walked 100 yards of red carpet leading to the resort’s pool area. They dined on crab claws, caviar and champagne.
“Rocky” himself, Sylvester Stallone attended.
The entertainment was provided by Party on the Moon, a popular cover act. Lead guitarist Dennis Lee Smith told Billboard magazine the band has played the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve party every year since 2009.
Ticket prices were $525 for members and $575 for guests.
>>COMPLETE COVERAGE: President Donald Trump in Palm Beach
2015
By New Year’s Eve 2015, Trump had announced his candidacy for president and participated in five debates.
The candidate himself, live on FoxNews, led the New Year’s countdown.
2014
Palm Beach Daily News Society Editor Shannon Donnelly wrote:
The night began with a co*cktail reception that filled the dining room, terrace, living room and tea room. Guests moved to the Grand Ballroom, decorated in true Versailles style with tables set with gold-and-white table linens and centered with dramatic arrangements of hydrangea, roses, and orchids climbing a tall gold candelabra. Even the good dinnerware — the gold-rimmed white-bone china embossed with the Mar-a-Lago seal — came out of the butler’s pantry for the night.
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After dinner — wedge salad, truffle and ricotta ravioli, short ribs and sea bass with mashed taro root and baby carrots — and dancing, host
Donald Trump led the New Year’s countdown, broadcast live from Times Square on two giant television screens flanking the stage.
Celebrities spotted included Serena Williams, Martha Stewart and Rod Stewart.
2013
According to the Palm Beach Daily News’ Donnelly:
Bob Kraft, Woody Allen and Donald Trump spent New Year’s Eve at The Mar-a-Lago Club, where the theme for the night’s celebration was Moulin Rouge.
>>PHOTOS: Inside Trump’s Mar-a-Lago through the years: Inside and out
The evening began with co*cktail hour — or, in this case, hours — on the terrace, with raw bars, carving stations, caviar and ’70s music.
After co*cktails, the 400-plus members and guests moved to the Grand Ballroom, decorated in the rich colors and fabrics of La Belle Epoque, for a dinner of pear and spinach salad, ravioli with duck confit, beef tenderloin, and baked Alaska.
2010
According to the Palm Beach Daily News, Trump invited golfer Tiger Woods to the club’s New Year’s Eve party.
Tiger, who at the time had not yet moved from the Orlando area to nearby Jupiter Island, was a no-show.
So Trump’s people did the next best thing. They hired Al Smith Jr., an Orlando Tiger impersonator.
“I didn’t hire him,” Trump said when asked if he didn’t worry he’d antagonize Woods after having been one of the only high-profile supporters of the golfer. “I’m not the party planner.” Trump pointed out there were real celebs at his shindig: Rocker Rod Stewart, who’s waiting for the birth of his new baby a few doors south of Mar-a-Lago, and TV host Regis Philbin.
Said Trump: “People came up to me to say that the Rod Stewart and Regis impersonators were great but that the Tiger guy was so-so. I don’t think they realized Rod and Regis were the real ones.”
2009
The Palm Beach Daily News reported the kickoff began early in the evening at The Mar-a-Lago Club, with co*cktails and hors d’oeuvres on the patio to mark the final happy hour of 2009.
From there, guests moved to the retro-chic ballroom — with its checkerboard dance floor, white carpet and Studio 54-style sofa seating around the dance floor — for a four-course dinner at tables covered in zebra-print linens and centered with masses of white hydrangeas in black vases.
Dance interludes saluted the ’60s-era Beatles and the ’70s-era Tina Turner, then jumped to “Donald Trump Hosts the Party of the Decade.”
2008
The Palm Beach Daily News noted the canny businessman extended the co*cktail “hour” to co*cktail “hours,” thus ensuring that his 300 guests were plenty celebratory once midnight rolled around.
2007
The Palm Beach Daily News reported that in 2007, Trump got the night off from being the center of attention.
Instead, it was all about his tablemate, Bob Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, who accepted congratulations, shook hands and posed for pictures. His team won every one of its regular season games that year. (They would eventually lose in the Super Bowl to the New York Giants).
2006
A 2006 Palm Beach Post story that poked fun at the most exclusive New Year’s Eve parties in Palm Beach County described plans for the Mar-a-Lago bash like this:
What: New Year’s Eve Gala at the posh Palm Beach club.
The dish: A Vegas-style bash, where Donald Trump, family, friends (Regis Philbin says he’s coming) and members party through the night.
Think caviar, a seafood bar, a vodka slide, followed by four courses (including truffled ravioli, filet of beef and lobster) and, much later, a breakfast buffet.
Highlights include the Vegas showgirl dancers and the fireworks extravaganza — free to the public, as long as you’re far away from Mar-a-Lago.
The damage: $500 a head.
2005
The Palm Beach Daily News reported: Guests at The Mar-a-Lago Club’s New Year’s Eve celebration learned firsthand what has often been said about their host: Donald Trump loves to take credit for any project in which he’s involved.
Case in point — after dinner, Trump took the stage to address his more than 600 guests and said he wanted his very-pregnant wife Melania to stand up “so you can all see what I’ve done to her.”
2004
The Palm Beach Post reported:
The New Year’s Eve bash at Mar-a-Lago felt like it could have been thrown by King Louis XIV.
Granted, the master of the palace, The Apprentice’s Donald Trump, looks nothing like a short French king with bad hygiene. But his new Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom, on the grounds of the Palm Beach property, glitters like a mini-Versailles.
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Seven hundred guests toasted the new year inside the $35 million ballroom, which was being used for the first time in a preview of Trump’s Jan. 22 wedding there.
“I’m very happy about the way this building turned out,” Trump said between bites of crab. “The exterior was designed to keep up with the vision of Mrs. (Marjorie Merriweather) Post, but the inside is more me. It’s got the feel and look of Louis XIV, and that’s my favorite style.”
The building, one of the few additions to the 1926 property built by the cereal heiress, is breathtaking in its attention to detail and luxury. Since the groundbreaking on Thanksgiving 2003, workers have hand-applied sheets of 24-karat gold to the hundreds of yards of wall and ceiling moldings. The Donald says that the gold alone cost him $7 mill, a couple of million short of what he spent to buy the entire property in 1985.
Each of the 17 crystal chandeliers that hung over the New Year revelers, who were serenaded by gorgeous Vanessa Williams, set him back $250,000. There are also mahogany doors; a state-of-the-art sound system that will be used by the likes of Gloria Estefan, Diana Ross and Tony Bennett during the next few weeks; and rare apple-green onyx on the bathroom floors. The bathroom basins are gold, and The Donald insisted that their piping be as well.
One topic of party conversation was the 58-year-old businessman’s nuptials to 30-year-old pillow-lipped model Melania Knauss, just three weeks away. It’ll be marriage No. 3 for Trump, whose first wife, author and jet-setter Ivana Trump, was celebrating the new year in her mansion a few blocks north.
“I feel just fine about getting married again,” The Donald said. “I’m not nervous about these things anymore.”
Said his and Ivana’s daughter, 23-year-old model Ivanka Trump: “I’m excited for my dad. I don’t know if my mom will be here, but I’m happy for him.”
2003
The Palm Beach Daily News reported: New Year’s Eve 2003 at The Mar-a-Lago Club was truly a ringing-out-the-old, ringing-in-the-new evening as members and guests celebrated the arrival of the new year in the club’s enormous party tent for what is probably the last time.
Construction of the new ballroom is under way, Trump told his guests, and said he expects it to be finished in time to welcome 2005.
In the meantime, however, it was party as usual, with a good mix of locals and out-of-towners, young and not-so, couples out for a night on the town and couples out for a night with the kids.
The evening began with an al fresco co*cktail reception and all kinds of hors d’oeuvres stations set up on the terrace, including a raw bar and a sushi boat as big as - well, a boat.
After dinner — winter greens with artichokes and duck breast, veal chop and jumbo grilled shrimp, cheese and onion tart, and a chocolate balthazar — KC and the Sunshine Band took the stage. Heavens to disco! It was like the ’70s were back.
The tent was all done up in the colors of precious metals — silver, gold and platinum, with metallic table linens and thousands of glittering balloons that fell from the ceiling at midnight.
Each table included a menu card printed on white chocolate.
2000
The Palm Beach Post reported that Mar-a-Lago Club charged $2,000 to ring in 2001 and fielded a crowd of 500.
They downed roasted pecan-crusted sea bass, grilled quail, fois gras, champagne sorbet, petite angus filet with Maytag Blue focaccia crust and venison medallions. On the upper terrace, they got a huge ``2000? ice sculpture that incorporated a martini luge.
Gladys Knight provided the music and everyone went home with souvenir millennium champagne flutes.
