Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune

Summary (from the publisher): When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money?

Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world.

Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else.

The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic.
 
Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.

Review: I received an advance reader copy of this book from Net Galley.

This is the most eccentric biography I think I'll ever read and there's no way that this review can cover all the fascinating details covered in this book. Empty Mansions is about Huguette Clark, the wealthy heiress daughter of W.A. Clark, "the most famous American whom most Americans today have never heard of." William Andrews Clark, reportedly richer than his contemporary, Rockefeller, made his fortune out west in railroads and founding Las Vegas. Clark astounded the world when he remarried at age 62 to his 23 year old ward. Thus Huguette's life was surrounded by wealth and unusual behavior before her birth. Her father built his second wife and their two daughters a mansion by Central Park with 26 bedrooms, 31 bathrooms, and five art galleries. W.A.'s history, which the first part of this book deals with extensively, is central to the book since many of the givens and eccentricities of Huguette's life are due to her wealth and unusual upbringing. The inclusion of her father's history also means this book spans from his birth in 1839 to Huguette's death in 2011, a truly remarkably long period of time and a significant chunk of American history.

Huguette was reclusive seemingly her whole life. Her older sister Andree died as a teenager, and following her death and that of her father, Huguette was largely secluded with her mother. She briefly married, gaining her entrance into numerous society pages, but the marriage ended after two years. Remarkably, the last known photo of the stunningly wealthy Huguette is from 1928. For decades, no one knew what had become of her, and most of her friends and relatives lost contact with her.

In 2009, Huguette's seclusion was exposed to the world, when investigative reporter Bill Dedman uncovered her many empty mansions. Huguette owned a $35 million home in Conneticutt that was bought in 1951 and has never been occupied. She also owns a 23 acre estate and mansion in Santa Barbara overlooking the Pacific Ocean that was bought for $100 million. Finally, she has 3 apartments on 5th Avenue in New York City overlooking Central Park that are composed of 42 rooms. Staff report that they have not seen Huguette in over 20 years. Where was Huguette living?

It turns out that Huguette, although in remarkably good health, spent the last twenty years of her life living in a hospital room in New York until her death at the age of 104 in 2011. In 1991, her doctor was called to her New York apartment to find her near death because she had previously refused to seek outside help. "His medical notes give the grim details. The patient was suffering from several cancers, basal cell carcinomas that had gone untreated for quite a while. She was missing the left part of her lower lip, unable to take food or drink without it gushing from her mouth. Her right cheek had deep cavities. Where her right lower eyelid should have been, there were large, deep ulcers exposing the orbital bone. She weighed all of seventy-five pounds, 'looked like somebody out of a concentration camp,' and 'appeared nearly at death's door." In other words, Huguette was so private and reclusive, that she waited until her face had holes in it and she was in such bad shape she could hardly eat before seeking help. After being transported to the hospital where she fully recovered, Huguette refused to ever leave. She would never see her apartment, most of her belongings, or most of her friends or relatives ever again.

Dedman concludes that Huguette was simply eccentric and was able to use her wealth to indulge her fancies, which included extravagantly priced dolls, artwork, and over the top gifts for those who were part of her life. For example, her nurse Hadassah received millions over the years, including the purchase of 6 residences. "Sometimes she'd give Hadassah two checks a day - $45,000 in the morning, $10,000 in the afternoon." "Counting all gifts, Hadassah and her family received at least $31,906,074.81 in cash and property from Huguette while she was alive." While she did lavish her nurses and lawyers with monetary gifts, she seems to have been mentally competent, and frequently the gifts were her idea - and she was also able to refuse when necessary, as she did when the hospital continually badgered her for millions of dollars. In addition, she had no close relatives with which to shower gifts, and repeatedly said she would rather see people enjoy her gifts while alive than wait to leave them things in her will. Furthermore, she left substantial amounts to charity, so although she may be seen to have wasted millions, not all was without a cause. From the outside, there's no way to prove anything else at work other than eccentricity in a woman who didn't know anything other than limitless funds and a family history of privacy at all costs.

In her lifetime, Huguette held a ticket for the second journey to the Titanic, owned countless priceless art works, was taught dance by Isadora Duncan, commissioned Lorioux, an early inspiration to Walt Disney, to design her doll houses, and survived the falling of the twin towers. Although she had little contact with friends or family, she kept up a warm and busy correspondence with many for decades, including warm letters with her ex-husband. Her wealth enabled her to live an odd but extraordinary life. While she would certainly have not have approved of this book being written about her, I am so glad it was written, because it was absolutely fascinating, and an intriguing look at a piece of American history that had previously been forgotten.

Stars: 5