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In the meanwhile, Nixon is able to enjoy the luxury of his San Clemente estate, while paying only a fraction of what it would cost him to buy outright. To make it even more pleasant, the President is getting an estimated $75,000 golf course free. Local firms are building the small course (four greens, seven tees just behind the villa's swimming pool) at their own expense. At the same time, Nixon is adding his own distinctive touches to enhance the comforts of the house. Recent visitors noticed a new bulletproof glass wall beside the swimming pool and a sound system to soothe the presidential nerves with the piped-in music of Mantovani and Kostelanetz. And he has already had some luck: his post-purchase survey of the land showed that it was not 21 but 26 acres in extent—a five-acre bonanza that Nixon's advisers estimate could eventually be worth as much as $300,000.
The President's other mortgage obligations are less Zeckendorfian. The two houses he bought on Bay Lane in Key Biscayne formed a $252,800 package. The house at 516 Bay Lane has a mortgage of $100,000, payable in 25 years at 7½% interest. The second house, at 500 Bay Lane, has two mortgages totaling almost $80,000, each for ten years at 6%. The presidential compound formed by the two houses is flanked by Nixon's friends. The ubiquitous Rebozo owns a house adjacent to the President's property. The house next to Rebozo's was bought early this year by Robert Abplanalp, a strong Nixon supporter during the 1968 presidential campaign, who owns Grand Cay in the Bahamas, a retreat the President favors. Nixon's third house, in Whittier, Calif., where his mother once lived, is a potential profitmaker. The house and lot are valued at $75,000—the mortgage is for $54,400 —but the area has just been rezoned for commercial use, which should enhance its worth considerably.
Taxing Experience. Despite the many residences, the presidential purse does not seem too strained. When Nixon sold his Fifth Avenue apartment in New York City last May, he received $326,000—twice what he paid for it in 1963. In April, the President sold 185,891 shares he had held in Fisher's Island, Inc., a land-development firm near Miami. Selling at $2 a share, the President doubled his original investment. With his White House salary, and what he saved from the fat years as a corporate attorney in New York, Richard Nixon is reasonably well off. And, of course, all the interest he pays on his holdings is deductible from his personal income taxes. His only real estate problem seems to be that, whenever the Nixons move into a neighborhood, they drive property values up. In the ten months that Nixon has owned the two houses in Key Biscayne, they have both reassessed upward by $52,000—a taxing experience, as every homeowner knows.