Melbourne: If you want to know how the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is at home, here are some of his quirks revealed by his longtime butler Anthony Senecal.
“He sleeps for just four hours a night, hates swimming and likes his steak so well done it “rocks on the plate,” said the 74-year-old butler about Trump’s personal habits when he is at home at his Florida mansion, which now is also a private club, reports News.com.au.
“You can always tell when the king is here,” said Senecal, who has been at the controversial billionaire’s service for 30 year, in an interview to a leading daily.
During the 69-year-old’s stays at the 118-room, Mediterranean-style Mar-a-Lago, he rises before dawn to accept a bundle of newspapers from his butler at the door of his private quarters.
On Sundays, Trump drives himself to his nearby golf course, alternating between his black and his white Bentley from year to year.
Senecal knows how to keep his employer happy. Once, when he heard Trump had arrived in Palm Beach in a bad mood, he hired a bugler to play “Hail to the Chief” as Trump alighted from his limo.
Earlier this month, the loyal servant called “All rise!” as Trump passed through the living room of the property and every club member and employee got to their feet.
When they play golf, Senecal pleases his boss by telling him he has hit the ball further than he actually has.
The mansion, which Trump bought from heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post for 10 million dollars, boasts a hair salon, but Trump always styles his own locks. In 1995, he turned it into a private club.
Years ago, he turned the library full of rare books no one in the family read into a bar, with a painting of himself in tennis whites on the wall.
Senecal described Trump’s first wife Ivana as demanding as she used to tell him to scrub spots out of the carpet and then redo his work or order him to send the gardeners inside so she could swim naked.
One of the businessman’s great talents has been making himself a fixture in elite social circles.
In 2005, the man of the house unveiled the 6000 sqm Donald J. Trump Ballroom at his wedding to third wife Melania, with guests including archrival Hillary Clinton.
The ballroom, later, hosted an 80th birthday party for Maya Angelou, thrown by Oprah Winfrey.
Senecal finally offered an insight into Trump’s family background, describing how his father Fred, a real estate developer, stepped out of his limo and said to the butler: “Somebody better get that coin.”
Senecal scrabbled on the ground and found what the multi-millionaire was talking about, a crusty old penny. (ANI)