Viewed as the Golden Boy of the '80s, wanna-be real estate tycoon, Donald Trump bragged about his obsession with New York's famed Plaza Hotel.
'You know, I'm going to buy this hotel', he told the Plaza's manager.
'I was in love with it. I tore myself up to get the Plaza', Trump said, and it cost him $400 million – or a record shattering $495k per hotel room and satisfied his vanity – but not with a dime of his own money.
'In the 1980s, at the peak of his real estate prowess, Donald Trump bought the Plaza, gilding its rooms in gold leaf and putting his wife Ivana in charge.
'Then the Trump empire crumbled, and not even a desperate attempt to spy on his enemies could prevent the inevitable', writes Julie Satow in her new book The Plaza, The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel.
Donald Trump dreamed of owning New York's famed Plaza Hotel since he was a little boy, finally making it a reality when he paid $400M for it in 1988
'You know, I'm going to buy this hotel', he told the Plaza's manager. 'I was in love with it. I tore myself up to get the Plaza', Trump said, and it cost him $400 million – or a record shattering $495k per hotel room and satisfied his vanity – but not with a dime of his own money
The Plaza filed for bankruptcy – its first and only time – before a Saudi Arabian prince and a billionaire from Singapore took the hotel off Trump's hand's.
'I haven't purchased a building, I have purchased a masterpiece – the Mona Lisa', he bragged in a full-page ad in New York magazine.
'For the first time in my life, I have knowingly made a deal that was not economic', he declared in print.
He said he was in love from his first visit at age seven.
Julie Satow writes about Trump's history with the Plaza Hotel in her book The Plaza, The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel
'I just remember the feeling of opulence. There's something very haunting and magical about the Plaza', he said.
So magical, he built his Trump Tower two blocks south of the hotel and took his office on the twenty-sixth floor that offered expansive cityscape views that included the Plaza – 'squarely within its frame'.
All he had to do was swivel his desk chair around to stare at the object of his long-held desire.
Trump had to shell out $407.5 million plus additional monies to cover closing costs and renovations but he needed a guarantor.
Citibank decided to back him, a change from a decade ago when Trump couldn't find a guarantor due to financial struggles.
Raised in Queens, New York under the tutelage of his father Fred, a developer who had made a fortune building middle-class housing in the outer boroughs, Donald grew tired of spending days in the housing projects and escaped across the East River to Manhattan's fast lane where he hung with models and Wall Street bankers at singles bars and even parties at the Plaza.
It was at the power broker hangout of the time, Maxwell's Plum that he met Ivana Zelnickova, who was standing outside in a line wearing a red mini-dress and high heels hoping to get the nod to get in.
Trump checked out the five-foot seven model with bleached blond hair and said he could get her a table.
It was a whirlwind courtship and she became his first wife and quickly insinuated herself in his businesses – from checking out the construction site of the Grand Hyatt Hotel he was renovating to her husband's Atlantic City casinos.
With his purchase of the Plaza, Trump made his wife Ivana president and announced, 'I will pay her one dollar a year and all the dresses she can buy!' Privately she was humiliated and it 'was just the beginning of their marital tensions', writes the author
The two met at the power broker hangout of the time, Maxwell's Plum. Ivana Zelnickova was standing outside in a line wearing a red mini-dress and high heels hoping to get the nod to get in. Trump checked out the seven model and said he could get her a table
With his purchase of the Plaza, Trump made Ivana president and announced, 'My wife, Ivana, is a brilliant manager. I will pay her one dollar a year and all the dresses she can buy!'
That comment provoked outrage but Ivana dismissed it publicly saying, 'We are a team. We are working together. I think it's really ridiculous to ask my husband for a salary'.
Privately she was humiliated and it 'was just the beginning of their marital tensions', writes the author.
Coming back from helping to run his casino in Atlantic City to her command post at the Plaza, Ivana wore her 'daily armor of Chanel suit and Charles Jourdan pumps' and eyed the Hotel critically with binoculars from the Trump Tower triplex before heading to the Plaza.
If anything was amiss, she'd pick up the phone and bark, 'There's paper on the sidewalk, get it cleaned up!'
On site, she barked orders to the housekeeping staff and even got down on her hands and knees and demonstrated how the bathroom floors should be scrubbed.
She was a profligate spender with enormous floral bouquets decorating the lobby and guests rooms outfitted with Frette linens and Chanel toiletries.
A new dress code was instituted for staff and visitors -- no shorts, jeans or casual wear in any common area of the hotel.
Ivana (pictured outside of the hotel in 1987) managed the Plaza with an iron fist. She barked orders to staff and even got down on her hands and knees and demonstrated how the floors should be scrubbed. She was a profligate spender with enormous floral bouquets decorating the lobby and guests rooms outfitted with Frette linens and Chanel toiletries
Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, New York
That didn't limit Eric Trump or his siblings from roller-skating through the lobby.
She made it 'crazily ornate, as if Louis IV were holding a yard sale', with a panoply of gold trim and faucets shaped like swans – wrote a New York Times critic.
'Everyone wanted to come to the Plaza, from Kim Basinger to the Duke of Wales to Mike Tyson', a hotel manager told the author.
Michael Jackson rented out the expensive Astor Suite and only bothered
