Yahoo Finance Why Trump is staying in a UK mansion that once sold for $1
Donald Trump is expected to stay at an extravagant London mansion during his state visit to the UK that once sold for just $1.
The US president is looking forward to dining with the Queen and other ceremonial events after he arrived on Air Force One at Stansted airport on Monday morning.
Several former US presidents have stayed at Buckingham Palace, but renovation work is reported to have forced Trump to make alternative plans.
He arrived this morning at Winfield House in Regent’s Park, the London residence of the US ambassador to the UK where Trump is thought to be spending the night.
Set in more than 12 acres of land behind iron gates 15 ft high, the Georgian-style mansion has a remarkable history.
READ MORE: Trump lands in the UK for state visit at Stansted airport
It was sold to the US government in a run-down state for a single dollar after the Second World War by the wealthy American heiress Barbara Hutton.
Then-president Harry Truman called the gift for a token sum the “most generous and patriotic offer” by Hutton.
Hutton had rebuilt the entire property only the previous decade in the 1930s, tearing down the largely derelict white stucco Regency villa that once stood on the site.
She paid for several thousand trees and hedges, oak parquet floors, 18th century French panelling, marble bathrooms and other features of the new mansion that took its place.
But only a few years later when war broke out, the property was commandeered by the UK government and used as an RAF barrage balloon unit.
Hutton returned to the USA during the war, and when she came back to the property it was full of “buckled floorboards, peeling walls, broken windows and dangling wires,” according to the US government.
READ MORE: Why Trump is not staying at Buckingham Palace
She decided to sell up, phoning her New York lawyer and telling him she wanted to hand over the property to the US government to repair it and use it as the official residence of the US ambassador.
The site’s illustrious history dates back well beyond the 20th century, with the land known to have been owned by the Abbey of Barking before the Norman Conquest a millennium ago.
King Henry VIII has hunted there, Queen Elizabeth I has entertained notable visitors there and King James I offered it up as collateral to raise funds to go to war.
Many of the villas on site had been abandoned and neglected by the 1920s before Hutton bought and revamped the large St Dunstan’s villa.
The final owner of the older property before it was torn down was the newspaper magnate Lord Rothermere.
