A mile west of Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, there's a road sign that reads: “Exercise extreme caution. Constant ground movement.”

A few blocks away, just off Palos Verdes Drive South, a sign for “The Estates” at Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles advertises that prospective residents can “build their own dream home.”

The signs sum up the promise and dangers of Trump's cliff-top, public golf course, which he bought from a bankrupt developer after the 18th hole slid into the sea in 2002 and which also played a role in Trump's fraud trial in New York.

On Friday morning, Trump is scheduled to hold a news conference at his club in the beautiful but beleaguered city, which is under a state of emergency declared this month by Gov. Gavin Newsom because of rapid land shifts caused by back-to-back wet winters.

Hundreds of homes have had their power and gas cut in recent weeks, and the area near the golf course is under a city state of emergency. Evacuation warning, The cracked land will move about 9 to 12 inches. One week Houses cracked or slid off their foundations.

Last month, a small fire broke out in the Portugal Bend area. Power line ignition The rocks that collapsed due to ground movement highlighted the danger.

It's unclear whether Trump will acknowledge the ongoing disaster during his visit. City officials say the club is about a half-mile from the site of the landslide. His campaign said in an email that they are “monitoring” the situation in the city.

Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruickshank said he's been trying hard to get Trump's attention.

“Hopefully, if he comes to town, I'll be able to be there and give him a schedule update,” Cruickshank said. “It'll be great to have anyone's attention.”

As of Thursday afternoon, Cruickshank had not yet scheduled anything.

Trump is in California this week for two big-ticket fundraisers, including one on Thursday night that costs $250,000 a pop. He will attend a Bay Area fundraiser on Friday afternoon, organized by a member of Newsom's wife's family and costing as much as $500,000 a pop.

This week, a dissonance emerged between Trump's club – its smoothly paved parking lot packed with Porsches, Teslas and BMWs – and the carnage unfolding just outside it.

Traffic was backed up by orange cones, lane closures and work trucks with flashing lights on on Palos Verdes Drive South, the only access to the club by car.

The two-lane road has long been a roller coaster of bumpy, frequently repaired asphalt that runs parallel to above-ground sewer pipes with flexible pipes designed to move along the ground, but shifting ground conditions have left the road cracked, rippled and steeply sloped.

Just off Palos Verdes Drive South, a sign for The Estates at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles invites future residents to build luxury homes. Two newly constructed cul-de-sacs lead onto landscaped vacant lots, where Trump's company is actively pursuing plans to build up to 23 homes, according to Amy Sirati, a senior city planner.

She said the Trump Organization is working through a lengthy list of requirements before the land can be sold and developed, including working with city geologists to ensure irrigation doesn't exacerbate land shifts.

“They're getting close to meeting the requirements,” she said. “I don't know the exact date, but they're getting close.”

Trump bought the property, then called Ocean Trails Golf Club, for a heavily discounted $27 million in 2002. The course was still under construction when a 1999 landslide caused the 18th hole to collapse into the Pacific Ocean, bankrupting the original developer.

In 2015, Trump announced he would abandon plans to build 16 additional housing lots and instead grant an 11.5-acre conservation easement to the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy. Trump told officials The conservation group said: “It's a great honour and we hope to enjoy it forever.”

Trump still owns the property, and golfers still use it as a driving range, but local leaders happy to preserve open space along the coast praised the move.

Trump said the land he donated was worth “well over $25 million.” Although he characterized the donation as a charity, it was in his interest to have the land valued as high as possible because it affected the amount of tax deductions he was eligible for.

2022 New York Attorney General Trump was suedhis three children and his company. They fraudulently inflated the value of the Rancho Palos Verdes Club and conservation easements, as well as the value of other Trump properties around the country.

The attorney general argued that the purpose was to obtain favorable loans and other financial benefits. pay He was fined more than $450 million in a civil fraud case, which Trump appealed.

In Rancho Palos Verdes, Trump has had multiple altercations with local residents who planted fig trees without permission to block views of homes they deemed ugly, and he has been fighting for a decade with the California Coastal Commission and the city over a 70-foot flagpole he erected without permission.

At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this summer, his son Eric Trump told hundreds of California delegates and their guests that the club had “the most beautiful view anywhere, the most perfect weather anywhere.”

“Every time I go there I think: 'If there were no taxes, if there were no taxes and no madness, I'd probably be living here.'”

On Wednesday, the day after a debate between President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the club's Café Pacific formal dining room was nearly empty, even though the ceiling is painted with dolphins and shells, the $25 Trump burger comes with Thousand Island dressing on a Trump-branded brioche bun and the large windows offer sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean.

Inside the clubhouse, visitors posed for photos next to $50 red MAGA hats. The bold cover of Playboy magazine in 1990 Trump appears with Playmate Brandi Brant, with Brandi wearing Trump's tuxedo jacket wrapped around her naked body.

He also pointed to a 2007 resolution signed by then-Los Angeles City Council Speaker Eric Garcetti, Receive a star On the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Meanwhile, Mayor Cruickshank has turned to a man even wealthier than Trump, tech billionaire Elon Musk, to help bail out the troubled city.

“Our community is resilient and this situation provides a unique opportunity to turn a setback into a showcase of sustainable living,” Mr Cruickshank said. I wrote in a letter On August 8, Tesla founder Post to XMusk, who also owns stock in Tesla, asked if Tesla could partner with the city to power affected homes with solar panels and batteries.

Musk's company responded within three days and quickly set up a meeting, Cruickshank said. City officials are now considering proposals for solar-powered batteries and other off-grid options to power homes.

Along with the signs warning of landslides and encouraging people to build their dream homes, there's another sign on Palos Verdes Drive South.

“Urgent sewer repairs. Delays expected.”

Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.