Empty Mansions

by Bill Dedman

  Our sources begin with Huguette herself, through her telephone calls with co-author Paul Newell. We also interviewed more than a hundred people—relatives, friends, employees, attorneys—who gave generously of their time and memories, sometimes with the understanding that we would not use their names. Their accounts are supplemented by the sworn testimony of fifty witnesses in the legal battle over Huguette’s estate, including her goddaughter, personal assistant, nurses, and doctors, as well as the relatives seeking her fortune.

  Luckily for us, Huguette kept nearly every important document in her life, and many papers that most of us toss out, even the first drafts of Christmas cards. We weren’t able to see everything in her archives, but we were able to read some twenty thousand pages of her personal and financial correspondence, including four thousand pages we had translated from the French. We read thousands of pages of notes made by her nurses in her twenty years in the hospital. We read correspondence that Huguette received from her attorneys and accountants; her income tax returns, bank statements, and canceled checks; and bills of sale for artwork, musical instruments, and furniture back to the early 1900s, as well as more recent inventories of her property. We read historical papers, including sections of her father’s journal and ledger from the 1860s and 1870s in Montana and genealogical entries in the Clark family Bible.

  To understand the Clarks and their world, we examined more than five thousand previously unpublished photographs from Huguette’s apartments, including those in her personal albums and snapshots of her dolls and dollhouses and her art projects. Perhaps more fascinating were her paintings, including those she owned, those she painted herself, and those painted of her by her painting instructor. Although private tours of her empty mansions were a window into her style and tastes during various periods, the detailed photographs, both historic and recent, in which one can see the books and sheet music on her shelves and the framed photos on her bedside table, brought those empty rooms to life.

  Add to these the public records of her life: the 1900 Senate investigation and trial resulting in W. A. Clark’s resignation from the U.S. Senate; the transcript of a 1920s court battle in Montana over W.A.’s estate; marriage and divorce certificates; burial records; property records; census rolls; passenger registries from ocean liners; passport applications; and hundreds of books, scholarly theses, and newspaper and magazine articles.

  Also telling are the ephemera: a lock of her sister’s hair, a harp composition of “Sleeping Beauty,” and a menu in French from W.A.’s dinner celebrating his first election to the Senate. The menu, like the man, bears a permanent stain, a single drop of Bordeaux.

  Huguette Clark was shy but not sad. Her friends and the few relatives who knew her described her as cheerful, gracious, stubborn, devoted to her art, and generous to friends and strangers. (illustration credit ins.1)

  The flamboyant W. A. Clark and his first wife, Kate, built this home in the mining town of Butte, Montana, in 1884–88. Designed to confer social status, it was easily the most expensive home in town, costing about $6 million in today’s currency. (illustration credit ins.2)

  Huguette, at about age four, sits with her doll collection on the porch of her father’s Butte mansion. W.A.’s two daughters from his second family—Andrée, born in 1902, and Huguette, born in 1906—stayed here in 1910–11 while their grand new home in New York was being finished. (illustration credit ins.3)

  On a family vacation in Connecticut in about 1912, near the time when the family held tickets on the Titanic’s return trip to Europe, Huguette sits with their father, W.A., while Andrée is beside their mother, Anna Eugenia LaChapelle Clark. The girls were about six and ten. (illustration credit ins.4)

  Though appearing reserved and even cold in public, Anna was warm and easygoing in private and had a salty sense of humor. The child of French Canadian immigrants who lived in a smoky mining section of Butte, she became the second wife of the copper millionaire W. A. Clark, who was thirty-nine years her senior. (illustration credit ins.5)

  W. A. purchased the golden room called the Salon Doré in Paris and had it shipped to New York. Huguette recalled that their father would not let the girls play in the eighteenth-century room, which is now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (illustration credit ins.6)

  W. A. Clark’s new mansion in New York, finished in 1911, was known as the most expensive in America. Its 121 rooms included five galleries for works of art, including this painting by Degas. (illustration credit ins.7)

  On a summer visit to Montana in about 1917, W.A. posed with daughters Andrée, left, and Huguette at Columbia Gardens, the family park he built for the people of Butte. The girls were about fifteen and eleven. W.A. loved to show off his flowers at Columbia Gardens. (illustration credit ins.8)

  The Clark mansion at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-Seventh Street by Central Park, “the most remarkable dwelling in the world” and Huguette’s childhood home, was occupied for only fourteen years. It cost about $180 million in today’s dollars, but after her father died in 1925, it was deemed too expensive for anyone to maintain and was torn down. In this view in 1927, a demolition debris chute extends from the window of the Salon Doré toward Fifth Avenue. A sign on the building advertises modern apartments to come. (illustration credit ins.9)

  Believed to be a self-portrait, this unsigned painting shows Huguette Clark in her twenties. At a time when most women painted with pastels, Huguette was a serious art student, mixing her own oil paints. (illustration credit ins.10)

  This painting by Huguette captures her view down Fifth Avenue in the snow, toward the Empire State Building. It emphasizes the cold, moist air in the blue-gray night, contrasted with the warmth inside her room, lit by the glow from a Japanese lamp. (illustration credit ins.11)

  Huguette’s art teacher, Tadé Styka, painted this portrait of her painting a nude male model at the Styka studio on Central Park South. (illustration credit ins.12)

  Huguette painted this tiny painting of a geisha bathed in gold, paying special attention to the colors and the exquisite detail in the fabrics. She studied Japanese culture and collected elaborate kimonos and hairpieces. But visiting Japan was a different matter. (illustration credit ins.13)

  Huguette poses uncomfortably in furs, a cloche hat, and her emerald and diamond bracelets after her wedding to Bill Gower in 1928, when she was twenty-two. This photo appears to be from her honeymoon trip and was republished in newspapers in 1930, when she divorced him. She would live until 2011 but no newer photo was published during her lifetime. (illustration credit ins.14)

  Bellosguardo, the Clark summer estate in Santa Barbara, California, was purchased by former senator Clark in 1923. His widow, Anna, had this mansion built in the early 1930s. She and her daughter Huguette stopped visiting in the early 1950s, although today it remains fully furnished and carefully preserved. Huguette, who inherited Bellosguardo in 1963, insisted that it be kept unchanged, in “first-class condition.” (illustration credit ins.15)

  Bellosguardo, at lower right, sits in privacy on a mesa by the Pacific Ocean, above Santa Barbara’s East Beach. The pond at right is the Andrée Clark Bird Refuge, created by Huguette as a memorial to her sister. When this photo was published on a picture postcard, Huguette’s property manager bought up every copy to protect her privacy. (illustration credit ins.16)

  In a photo from about 1940, the library at Bellosguardo is dominated by a portrait of Huguette’s sister, Andrée, over the mantel. The painting and the library are still as they were then, but now with the furniture covered. (illustration credit ins.17)

  The bedroom at Bellosguardo of Huguette’s mother, Anna, features one of her ornate pedal harps, her bed with damask upholstery on the footboard, a John Singer Sargent painting of a dancer enticing a man on a rooftop in Capri, and photos of her daughters, Andrée and Huguette. (illustration credit ins.18)

  Although Huguette’s sister, Andrée, did not live to see Bellosguardo, she is present everywhere. (illustration c
redit ins.19)

  The Clarks named this Tudor playhouse Andrée’s Cottage in honor of their daughter, who died at sixteen. (illustration credit ins.20)

  W.A. and Anna also donated land in New York for the first national Girl Scout camp, named Camp Andrée Clark. (illustration credit ins.21)

  Just as her mother bought a California ranch as a refuge during World War II, Huguette during the Cold War bought this Connecticut retreat, Le Beau Château, on fifty-two acres in New Canaan. (illustration credit ins.22)

  It sat empty for more than sixty years, with vines eventually growing through the shutters outside the kitchen windows. When she finally offered it for sale, it led to the disclosure of her reclusive life. (illustration credit ins.23)

  Huguette Clark’s dear Frenchman and childhood friend, Etienne de Villermont, shown here in France, brought his daughter, Marie-Christine, to visit Huguette in New York. The girl’s toy donkey, Cadichon, was one of many gifts she received from Huguette. Etienne and Huguette corresponded for decades, and he visited her many times, even with his wife. He wrote to her in 1966: “In spite of our separate lives, my heart always beats with you. The years will always live …” (illustration credit ins.24)

  On a single day in 1993, when Huguette was eighty-six, she bought these two French dolls from the late 1800s (a Jumeau, top, and a Thuillier). She paid nearly $30,000 for the pair, but had authorized her attorney to bid up to $135,000. She was nearly always the highest bidder.(illustration credit ins.25)

  Huguette designed and commissioned many tabletop reproductions of Japanese buildings: castles, tearooms, houses, temples. “She was just a delightful person,” said Caterina Marsh, her go-between with the artists in Japan. “She developed an incredible knowledge about the art and culture of Japan. It was astonishing what she knew, all the legends and folklore. To me, she was the last of an era.” (illustration credit ins.26)

  Trying to count all of Huguette’s dolls in her three apartments, her personal assistant came up with 1,157, including more than 600 antique Japanese dolls. She loved the tiny hina dolls, which in Japan are displayed during a festival every March. “They are hard to get,” she said. “They are very lovely dolls, you know.” (illustration credit ins.27)

  A dedicated amateur photographer with a collection of high-end cameras, Huguette in her middle years posed regularly for simple self-portraits taken with her Polaroid instant cameras. Regularly on Easter and Christmas, she would pose for such snapshots in her apartment on Fifth Avenue. (illustration credit ins.28)

  After moving into a hospital in 1991, Huguette spent $445,893 for a French company to make these reproductions of the antique furniture that was upstairs in her late mother’s former bedroom. If you walked into Huguette’s bedroom in Apartment 8W, or her mother’s in 12W, you would have had a hard time telling the difference. She never returned to this room or saw any of this furniture, except in photos. (illustration credit ins.29)

  One of three $5 million checks that Huguette wrote to her private-duty nurse, (illustration credit ins.30)

  Hadassah Peri, who received more than $31 million from her, not counting millions more in her will. Hadassah worked for Huguette for twenty years, including every day for nearly a decade. She said, “I give my life to Madame.” (illustration credit ins.31)

  Huguette lost this $10 million Degas ballerina, which was stolen from her apartment while she was in the hospital and turned up on the wall of a noted collector. She refused to sue to get it back, because the publicity would threaten her privacy.

  She sold this Stradivarius violin for $6 million so that she could give more gifts. In 1955, she had bought the violin, known as “La Pucelle” (meaning “the virgin”), but she preferred to play a lesser Strad. (illustration credit ins.32)

  After Huguette died, her jewelry fetched $18 million at auction. This Art Deco diamond and gem charm bracelet by Cartier from about 1925, with themes of love, sold for $75,000. (illustration credit ins.33)

  Her pair of emerald, natural pearl, and diamond ear pendants, by Cartier, from the early twentieth century, sold for $85,000. (illustration credit ins.34)

  Her Art Deco diamond bracelet, by Cartier, circa 1925, sold for $480,000. (illustration credit ins.35)

  Her Art Deco emerald and diamond bracelet, by Cartier, circa 1925, sold for $90,000. (illustration credit ins.36)

  The view Huguette abandoned when she moved to a hospital from her apartment building at 907 Fifth Avenue, including the sailboat pond in Central Park in the foreground. (illustration credit ins.37)

  The view from Huguette’s last regular hospital room at Beth Israel Medical Center. From her window in room 3K01, one can see no sky at all, only the facing wall of another wing of the hospital, and the air-conditioning units. (illustration credit ins.38)

  FOR HUGUETTE.

  P.N. and B.D.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MANY PEOPLE CONTRIBUTED to the Clark story, and we thank them for their extraordinary generosity.

  Michael V. Carlisle of Inkwell Management was as helpful and encouraging as any agent could be, assisted by Lauren Smythe and Nathaniel Jacks.

  Pamela Cannon, executive editor at Ballantine Books, reached out to encourage our plans to write about the Clarks, and edited this text with patience and good judgment. Anna Bauer designed the jacket. Others at Random House Publishing Group who helped get this book into your hands include Richard Callison, Susan Corcoran, Benjamin Dreyer, Toby Louisa Ernst, Michelle Jasmine, Barbara Jatkola, Ratna Kamath, Mark LaFlaur, Carole Lowenstein, Mark Maguire, Libby McGuire, Allison Merrill, Cindy Murray, Grant Neumann, Beth Pearson, Paolo Pepe, Quinne Rogers, Evan Stone, Simon M. Sullivan, Jennifer Tung, Betsy Wilson, Maralee Youngs, and Amelia Zalcman.

  Paul Newell

  IN MEMORY of Clark relatives no longer with us, I acknowledge important contributions by my cousins Mary Abascal, Anita Mackenzie, and their mother, Elizabeth Clark Abascal, as well as Anita’s son, Sandy Mackenzie, all of whom knew and remembered well W. A. Clark, Anna Clark, and Huguette Clark. I appreciate these cousins for their personal recollections and for their sharing of archival photos, letters, and other documents.

  I’m grateful especially to my dear father, Paul Clark Newell, who admired his famous uncle, wrote about him, and conserved the large accumulation of photographs and letters left by my grandmother Ella, who was W.A.’s youngest sister and who was caregiver to their mother in the years approaching her centennial birthday. My appreciation also to Agnes Clark Albert, whom I interviewed by phone in April 2000, at a time when she was the last surviving grandchild of Senator Clark.

  Finally, I express my fond memories of my cousin Huguette Clark, with whom I was privileged to become acquainted as she entered her ninetieth year and with whom I often communicated by telephone and written correspondence. She was generous in sharing family photos and personal reminiscences of her father, her dear departed sister, Andrée, and her mother, Anna, who was her closest companion during Anna’s long life.

  Among living Clark cousins and their spouses, I thank a number of them for their kindness in sharing bits of family history and genealogical information, including André Baeyens, John Michael Clark, Lorilott Clark, Carla Hall Friedman, Erika Hall, Lewis and Gemma Hall, Margie Henry, Edie MacGuire, Helen Murray Miller, and particularly Beverly McCord, who created a Clark family tree at the dawn of the twenty-first century, a prototype that has been amended in the years following to confirm accuracy and to add the most recent generations. I thank my sister, Eve Newell, for many, many hours devoted to this genealogical mission, and her husband, Ron Forsey, for his implementation electronically of an updated family tree and for scanning and storing many documents and photo images, some of which grace the pages of this book.

  Among institutions, I received invaluable help from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, with special thanks to Dare Myers Hartwell, conservator, and Marisa Bourgoin, formerly the archivist at that institution; and from the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at the University
of California, Los Angeles, with my gratitude for office space and archival storage made available to me. Much appreciation to the librarians and other staff at the Clark, and particularly to Suzanne Tatian, who provided me with useful counsel and assistance over the past eighteen years.

  I received courteous and useful assistance from many other libraries and historical societies, including the Connellsville Area Historical Society in Pennsylvania; Thelma Shaw, Nora Meier, and Nancy Silliman at the Kohrs Memorial Library in Deer Lodge, Montana; the Montana Historical Society Research Center in Helena; Ellen Crain at the Butte–Silver Bow Public Archives in Butte; the World Museum of Mining in Butte; and the Jerome Historical Society in Arizona.

  With gratitude for the support and encouragement received from my loving family, including parents with me in spirit, siblings, and wonderful progeny.

  And with special admiration for my co-author, Bill Dedman, Pulitzer Prize winner, for his knack of putting a friendly face on history and for his uncommon prolificacy, born of years of delivering impressive copy in the face of inflexible deadlines.

  Bill Dedman

  THANK YOU to the many online readers who demanded we follow up to find Huguette and to make sure she was well cared for.

  The editors at NBCNews.com (the former msnbc.com) said right from the start that they’d like to know what was up with those empty mansions, and allowed me time to work on this book. Investigations editor Mike Brunker is the patient editor every reporter imagines but doesn’t believe exists. (He also is 2,411 miles away, which turns out to be exactly the right distance from your editor.) And thanks to the big bosses: Russ Shaw, Jennifer Sizemore, Greg Gittrich, Dick Belsky, Stokes Young, Jen Brown, Charlie Tillinghast, and Vivian Schiller. They supported this effort, even if they silently questioned the view, as one reader put it, “Well, if she had a doctor with only one patient, accountants and lawyers with only one client,” then “certainly she can have one reporter.…”