The rise, fall, and renovation of Trump’s childhood home

The house Donald Trump lived in until age 4 is back on the market after some inglorious ups and downs. Built by Trump’s father, the Tudor in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, NY, served a brief stint as an $800-per-night Airbnb (with a cardboard cutout of POTUS), then devolved into a vacant hovel for feral cats. But things are looking up: In March, developer Tommy Lin purchased the rundown property for $835,000, undertook a gut renovation, and listed it for $2.3 million. We got listing agent Jevon Gratineau of Brown Harris Stevens to spill details.

Q: How did you end up as the listing agent? “I’ve worked with the developer on other projects, so I already had a foot in the door. This is our brainchild, a collaboration I was involved in from the start back in March.”

Q: What was this property like when you first saw it? “The house was in disrepair. Cats all over the place, lawn overgrown, uninhabitable.”

Q: What did you decide to do with the place? “With an opportunity like this, you do it right or not at all. The neighborhood had supply, but nothing ‘wow.’ We wanted to do wow, so we laid out a plan: Make the inside modern, updated, but not over the top. The chandeliers were too dated, so those went.”

Q: Did you preserve any original details as a nod to Trump’s time there? “We kept the outside classic Tudor style. We also kept the original wood-burning fireplace, and saved another original wood-burning oven from the sunroom.”

Q: What’s been the response from buyers? “The first thing they say is, ‘President Trump lived here, huh?’ Then they get over it and start asking how it fits their family. We’ve had steady traffic and hope to be under contract within a week.”

Q: Do you think the house will sell for a premium because the president lived here? “I don’t know. Michael Jordan’s house sat for years, so it’s hard to say. We just focused on giving buyers more than they’d get elsewhere in the neighborhood.”