What would you do if you were the heir or heiress of a small fortune? Most of us can only imagine what it might be like to inherit a fifth of $250 million and yet that's exactly what Huguette Clark inherited in 1925 after her father, W.A. Clark (a copper baron) died (worth $3.4 billion in today's money). Little had been known about Ms. Clark until journalist, Bill Dedman, stumbled upon the story. Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr. explores a fascinating tale of a poor, little rich girl.
Synopsis: "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...
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...
...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." (Amazon.com)
Review: At 359 pages (not counting notes), Empty Mansions reads like a psychological detective story that will interest fans of early 20th century American and European art, high society, and politics. Other themes include the destructive role of inheritances in wealthy family members' lives, and the difficulty of determining what constitutes mental illness and elder abuse.
At Huguette's death at the age of 104, her relatives were embroiled in a legal battle with her lawyer, accountant, private nurse and long-term care hospital, all of whom, in my opinion, violated professional ethics codes by taking enormous sums of money from the increasingly frail woman during the last two decades of her life. These "caregivers" repeatedly say that they never asked Huguette for the money, claiming it was offered. But when you walk into a room of a 90+ year old kindhearted woman and talk about how you cannot afford something, you are manipulating her into giving you money. Disgusting! Huguette's family isn't much better, having nearly forgotten about their aunt when she became reclusive. But you expect family to be money grubbers, not physicians, nurses, and attorneys who should have better ethics.
It makes me so sad that no one was there to be her advocate, and becomes a cautionary tale for financial and estate planning. Exceptionally well-researched, this mesmerizing biography will weave a web around your mind like the best mystery stories, but it's all frightening real.
At Huguette's death at the age of 104, her relatives were embroiled in a legal battle with her lawyer, accountant, private nurse and long-term care hospital, all of whom, in my opinion, violated professional ethics codes by taking enormous sums of money from the increasingly frail woman during the last two decades of her life. These "caregivers" repeatedly say that they never asked Huguette for the money, claiming it was offered. But when you walk into a room of a 90+ year old kindhearted woman and talk about how you cannot afford something, you are manipulating her into giving you money. Disgusting! Huguette's family isn't much better, having nearly forgotten about their aunt when she became reclusive. But you expect family to be money grubbers, not physicians, nurses, and attorneys who should have better ethics.
It makes me so sad that no one was there to be her advocate, and becomes a cautionary tale for financial and estate planning. Exceptionally well-researched, this mesmerizing biography will weave a web around your mind like the best mystery stories, but it's all frightening real.
That being said, the first half of the book gets bogged down in minute descriptions of every ounce of furnishings of the once-great Clark mansions, and the blow-by-blow descriptions of how W. A. Clark amassed his fortune. Much of this detail could have been edited by half and still be effective. The story really picks up steam after about 200 pages when it gets into the meat of how Huguette is exploited by her larcenous caregivers. At first I was unsure if I could finish the book, but I read the last half in one sitting (literally - with my eyes bugging out and gasping at the greed that these vultures exhibited).
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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| Huguette's debutante photo circa 1926 |
2 comments:
Sounds like a great book!
Yerp. That it was! :-)
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