Donald Trump was glad that Maryanne Trump Barry decided to pursue a career in law instead of the family real estate business. “We’re both lucky she didn’t want to. We’d have been butting heads,” he told New York Magazine in 2002. However, Barry tried to work for the family business when she was younger but said her talents were squandered on “women’s work,” such as decorating properties.
The former federal judge may not have pursued real estate as a career, but she turned a profit on several properties. In 2015, Barry sold a Palm Beach mansion for $8.9 million, per The Real Deal. The property, located next to her brother’s Mar-a-Lago country club, was originally purchased by Barry in 2001 for $1.75 million. She tore down the existing home and built a new one. A few years later, Barry sold an estate in Palm Springs to Trump’s sons for $18.5 million, per the Los Angeles Times. That eight-bedroom home was originally purchased in 2004 for $11.5 million.
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Barry may have made some cash on her homes, but she lacked the passion for real estate that her brother had always exhibited. Trump spoke about his interest in an interview with The Washington Post in 1980. “In my case, by the way, my art is my real estate and my buildings, and if the deals work out well, that makes me happy,” he told the Post. Ultimately, real estate was not why Trump and his sister grew apart.
