NEW YORK — U.S. President Donald Trump’s childhood home has sold for nearly US$2 million after a renovation transformed the New York City residence from a mold-ridden cat den to a modern abode. The president lived at the Tudor-style Queens estate until age 4. His father, developer Fred Trump, built the home in the affluent Jamaica Estates neighborhood in 1940. The family hasn’t owned it in years. The sale price, $1.93 million, appeared Friday on real estate websites after a buyer, whose name hasn’t been disclosed, entered into a contract in July. The seller, Tommy Lin, had purchased the five-bedroom, three-bathroom home last year for $835,000 after it sat vacant and neglected for years. Lin, a developer, spent another $500,000 on an eight-month interior overhaul that added amenities including a chef’s kitchen, herringbone wood floors and spa-like bathrooms, the New York Post reported. The home has changed hands several times in recent years, including for $2.14 million months after Trump became president in 2017, according to Zillow. The buyer was an entity called Trump Birth Home LLC and the home was briefly offered for rent on Airbnb, complete with copies of a life-sized cardboard cutout of Trump, copies of his book “The Art of the Deal” and a framed People magazine cover featuring Trump. It was listed for sale again in 2019 with an asking price of $2.9 million, but went unsold until Lin snapped it up. In the meantime, the Post reported, the home fell into disrepair, with water damage and mold from a burst pipe, and a colony of feral cats taking up residence where Trump spent his earliest years. The president, now 80, got rich in the real estate business — putting up his namesake Trump Tower in Manhattan and living there for decades — before parlaying his fame and wealth into politics. As president, he’s overseeing his own residential overhaul: adding a massive ballroom to the White House and adorning the Oval Office with the kinds of gold-plated fixtures that are a hallmark of his properties and aesthetic. The Associated Press
