Trading Down

The Nixons sell San Clemente

When he was President, the idyllic 26-acre retreat on the Pacific bustled as the Western White House. After he fell from power, it provided an elegant refuge. But Richard Nixon is moving out of his San Clemente estate. Inflation has pushed the upkeep of the twelve-room, Spanish-style villa beyond his pocketbook, and last week he sold it to a group of Orange County businessmen for an undisclosed sum.

Nixon purchased the San Clemente property in 1969 for $1.5 million, in partnership with longtime Friend Robert Abplanalp. In the following years, $6.1 million worth of improvements were made to the estate at taxpayer expense. Much of this was used to install the communications links and elaborate security facilities required by a President and to provide working and sleeping accommodations for the large staff that accompanied Nixon whenever he left Washington.

Among these expenditures were guard posts ($56,903), bulletproof-glass windscreens ($12,894), and $1.7 million for the office complex.

In addition, there were outlays for brightening up the estate for the Nixons and making life more comfortable: a flagpole, for example, cost $2,329; golf carts ran to $15,929; and a bill for decorative pillows came to $86.

The Nixons never did reimburse the Government for these nonsecurity improvements. Whether they should, now that the estate is being sold, is under study by Washington. Peter Hickman, a spokesman for the General Services Administration, said that "if anything there is Government property, it remains Government property." By that, Hickman meant that the Government would remove what it could, including security equipment that might be used to protect Nixon at his new residence.

If so, the gear would not have to be moved very far. Nixon's $80,000 federal pension, plus royalties from memoirs and television appearances, still enables him and Pat to live quite comfortably. They will soon move just one mile from San Clemente to Cypress Shores. A $650,000 five-bedroom home in this private compound has been acquired by Pal Charles ("Bebe") Rebozo, who plans to sell it soon to his old friends from the pleasant days in Florida and Washington, D.C.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.