What steps did Congress and the National Park Service take in the 1970s–1980s regarding Mar-a-Lago’s bequest?

1. Congress authorizes the federal acceptance and the Nixon administration takes title

In 1972 Congress cleared legislation to designate Mar‑a‑Lago as a national historic site and on October 23 President Nixon signed the bill authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to accept title to the estate upon Post’s death, formalizing the bequest and setting the Park Service up as custodian ^{[1] [4]}.

2. The National Park Service accepts administration and lists the estate as historic

The Interior Department and the NPS moved to administer Mar‑a‑Lago: it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and turned over to National Park Service administration in the early 1970s (administration dates cited as 1969–1972 in contemporary accounts), reflecting the federal view that the house had civic value and could serve diplomatic or presidential functions ^{[2] [1] [5]}.

3. Operational reality: high costs, security headaches, and mounting federal reluctance

Within a few years the Park Service found the property expensive to maintain—estimates at the time put upkeep near about $1 million annually—and difficult to secure given its coastal location and proximity to Palm Beach airport; those operational burdens drove growing congressional concern that Post’s endowment and federal appropriations were inadequate to sustain a presidential‑grade facility ^{[2] [6] [7]}.

4. Congressional relief funding and the decision to reverse the bequest

Congress briefly tried to mitigate the burden—by 1980 lawmakers had authorized additional federal funding (reported in contemporary sources as roughly $100,000 annually beginning in 1980)—but concluded the intervention was insufficient and that the Park Service should not be responsible for Mar‑a‑Lago’s unique security and maintenance profile ^{[6] [2]}.

5. Legislative undoing: Act 96‑586 returns Mar‑a‑Lago to the Post Foundation

Faced with continuing cost and security challenges, Congress passed legislation (commonly cited as Act 96‑586) that formally returned the estate to the Marjorie Merriweather Post Foundation, with the transfer dated in many accounts to December 23, 1980 (some secondary accounts give 1981 in error); that act effectively repealed the 1972 order placing Mar‑a‑Lago under NPS control and ended the short experiment of federal stewardship ^{[3] [8] [9] [2]}.

6. How historians and contemporaneous reporting frame the reversal

Contemporary and retrospective coverage frames the episode as an example of the Park Service accepting a “white elephant”: well‑intentioned historic preservation collided with the pragmatic realities of presidential security and federal budgeting, prompting a pragmatic congressional retreat; authors note that Nixon even inspected the property as a potential “southern Camp David” before the fiscal and logistical problems proved decisive ^{[6] [4] [2]}.

7. Conflicting dates and sources: a narrow caution about specifics

Public sources are consistent about the arc—acceptance, stewardship, and legislative return—but some discrepancies appear in secondary retellings about whether the final transfer is recorded as late‑1980 or in 1981; the primary legislative citation most often given in official summaries is act 96‑586 with a December 23, 1980 date ^{[3] [8] [9] [10]}.

8. Bottom line: Congress and the NPS tried, then retreated

In sum, Congress authorized acceptance of Post’s bequest and the NPS briefly administered Mar‑a‑Lago as a historic site, but escalating maintenance and security costs prompted additional but inadequate funding and ultimately a congressional statute that returned the estate to the Post Foundation within a decade of federal stewardship ^{[1] [6] [3]}.