What's in a name? For Trump Plaza, everything
Even though The Donald no longer has anything officially to do with
And that lends a certain mystique to the buildings, an aura that manages to stand out among the growing forest of condominiums in the city's core.
But it's more than a name.
The condominiums inside Trump Plaza - a name that residents decided to keep some years ago after internal debate on the subject - take full advantage of their perch at the southeast corner of the downtown.
The panoramas are eye-popping from all of the condos. For those with double units, a 4,000-square-foot spread that would dwarf many single-family homes, windows wrap around on all sides, providing views of the Okeechobee bridge to Palm Beach, the Intracoastal, the Atlantic Ocean, the newly refurbished waterfront promenade, the rest of the downtown, and Clear Lake, depending on the window.
"I think we have spectacular views," said Elaine Slater, who puts together The Trumpet, a witty condo newsletter, from her and her husband's double unit on the 11th floor.
But it's more than the views.
Outside on the fifth-floor deck, a pool glistens in the sun, surrounded by just enough landscaping.
What to do, though, when the sun is lost later in the day? Make the 10-second walk to the other side, of course. Another pool, another pool deck.
Yes, there's a morning pool and there's an afternoon pool.
Inside are meeting rooms and party rooms. There is an informal library, where residents drop off books when they're finished with them and pick a new one up.
The exercise rooms are outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment.
Many improvements have been made in recent years, helped by a sense of common mission among the residents. Improvements included a re-tiling of the pool decks using removable tiles - making it easy to get to the towers' expansion joints, which need regular maintenance, without having to then replace the tiles, which wouldn't precisely match the other tiles.
"You can always paint, but the key is to keep the infrastructure healthy," said Don Smith, a 24th- floor resident who worked on that project.
"Everybody wants their property to be nice and not depreciate property values," said Robert Van Lew, the general manager.
Association fees for maintenance of common areas average about $5,000 per quarter for single units and about $10,000 per quarter for doubles.
Of the 225 units - some of which are combined to form one apartment - there are 15 on the market. They range from an eighth-floor, 1,900-square-foot single unit for $399,000 to a 22nd-floor, 4,000-square-foot unit for $2.65 million.
"The Trump units compare very well to One Watermark Place and many buyers who cannot find new buildings and large apartments in Palm Beach are gravitating toward the luxury buildings on the West Palm Beach waterfront," Realtor Rosalind Clarke, who has a listing there, said in an e-mail. "As a result we are getting a lot of showings for the Trump units."
As Elaine Slater ushered a visitor though the towers, she exchanged pleasantries with just about every other resident she saw.
"It's a very neighborly building," she said.
Van Lew, standing with Smith outside the management office, said there's a sense of camaraderie between him and the residents.
"I work here, he lives here. But we're friends," he said. "That makes it more enjoyable."
JIM and ELAINE SLATER
THEIR HOME: A 4-bedroom,
41/2-bath, 4,018-square-foot double condo built in 1986.
WHEN THEY MOVED IN: January 1995
WHAT THEY PAID: $825,000
CURRENT VALUE (from Zillow.com): not available
WHY THEY LOVE IT: Sure, the Slaters thought about making their new winter home in a condo on the
But, in a touch of irony, one of the reasons they decided differently, and chose
For views at night - the ocean alone isn't so great.
"If you're right on the ocean, it's a black hole at night," said Elaine Slater, a writer who moved with her husband, Jim, to
They still summer in
"I know everybody," she said. "I can call on them if I need a cup of butter."
Like others in
"Here, we look north, we look south, we look east, we look west," she said.
The Slaters have been pleased, it seems, with just about everything, down to the informal library where residents exchange books. They are within walking distance to downtown restaurants, the
They chose to decorate their hallway (residents have that flexibility) with a bright, white country pattern, unlike some of the other hallways that are a somber grayish purple.
For them, this is the bottom line: "We just never found anything as beautiful as this."
Today, they're very comfortable.
"It's great for us," they say.
DON SMITH and CAROL GROH
THEIR HOME: A 4-bedroom,
41/2-bath, 4,018-square-foot double condo built in 1986.
WHEN THEY MOVED IN: July 2004
WHAT THEY PAID: $1.9 million
CURRENT VALUE (from Zillow.com): $1.3 million
WHY THEY LOVE IT: Saying that Don Smith and Carol Groh had high standards when they were looking for a new place to live might draw snickers from people who know where they used to live.
Talk about an understatement.
Smith and Groh lived in a home, perched at the ocean's edge in
Then they came to a realization: Their children tended to be bored when they visited.
So Smith and Groh went off to find something more cosmopolitan, but with sky-high tastes when it comes to views and style. (He's an architect. She's an interior designer.)
They scoured
"We came in and said, 'Oh my God, look at this,'" Smith said. "We wanted all this glass."
Glass wraps around the sun-soaked apartment, giving views of downtown
Plus, it's close to just about everything, just right for these former New Yorkers.
"We were used to walking everywhere in