Hughes History as Art and as Science Beth Israel Hospital
Huguette Clark owned several apartments on Fifth Avenue, a mansion in Connecticut and a house in California, but chose to live for two decades in a infirmary room. This New York City house, her childhood home, featured five art galleries. (Photo from the book Empty Mansions) Courtesy of Camera Craft hibernate explanation
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Courtesy of Camera Craft
Huguette Clark owned several apartments on 5th Avenue, a mansion in Connecticut and a firm in California, merely chose to alive for two decades in a hospital room. This New York City business firm, her childhood home, featured five art galleries. (Photo from the book Empty Mansions)
Courtesy of Photographic camera Craft
She had 3 apartments on New York'south Fifth Artery, all filled with treasures worth millions, non to mention a mansion in Connecticut and a business firm in California. But the enigmatic heiress Huguette Clark lived her last 20 years in a obviously busy hospital room — even though she wasn't sick.
Huguette Clark poses for a photo in her debutante days. She was 104 when she died in 2011. (Photo from the volume Empty Mansions) Courtesy of the Manor of Huguette Thou. Clark hide caption
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Courtesy of the Estate of Huguette M. Clark
Huguette Clark poses for a photograph in her debutante days. She was 104 when she died in 2011. (Photograph from the book Empty Mansions)
Courtesy of the Estate of Huguette M. Clark
It's just one of many curiosities nigh Clark, the late heiress to the fortune of copper magnate Sen. Andrew Williams Clark. For years, even friends and family idea she was living on Fifth Avenue. Her lavish gifts to her nurse prompted a police investigation. And now, three years subsequently her death at age 104, Clark's artwork and antiques are heading from her abandoned apartments to Christie's auction block.
Empty Homes Full Of Pristine Treasures
At a preview for the auction, being held this month, the room is filled with boggling items nerveless over decades, all in perfect condition. One armchair from the 18th century is so perfectly preserved that the needlepoint colors are withal brilliant.
"The decorative arts that you see around the room here have come from the 5th Avenue flat where Huguette lived a fair part of her life," says Andrew McVinish, caput of Private and Iconic Collections at Christie's.
There are rare books, antiques and paintings. Christie'due south recently sold a Monet painting of water lilies from the Clark estate for $24 million. At one bespeak, McVinish takes a gold-colored handbag out of a instance. The paper stuffing is still in it. "Once once more, never been used," he says.
And that'south symbolic of one of Clark'due south eccentricities. She had a mansion in Connecticut that was never occupied. Her New York apartments were kept up, empty, for more than 20 years. Paul Clark Newell, a cousin of Clark'south, spoke to her over the phone for nine years while Clark was in the hospital. He, similar everyone, assumed she was living on 5th Avenue.
She always made the calls out so no i would know where she was calling from, Newell says. He and Bill Dedman are co-authors of a book about Clark chosen Empty Mansions.
The George I Walnut and Beech Fly Armchair, circa 1725, covered in 18th century gros point and petit point needlework, is one of Huguette Clark's many belongings headed to auction. Photo courtesy of Christie'due south Images Ltd. 2014 hide explanation
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Photo courtesy of Christie's Images Ltd. 2014
The George I Walnut and Beech Wing Armchair, circa 1725, covered in 18th century gros point and petit point needlework, is one of Huguette Clark's many belongings headed to auction.
Photo courtesy of Christie'south Images Ltd. 2014
Dedman notes that if y'all were in your mid-80s, alone with 3 apartments filled with paintings worth millions, you might well feel unsafe.
"She had much more society in the hospital than she had at habitation," he says. "She had people visiting her, she had people to accept care of her."
Generosity That Raised Red Flags
Clark gave her nurse $xxx one thousand thousand in gifts over time, and put her lawyer and accountant in the will. This raised so many scarlet flags that the Manhattan commune attorney'due south office began to investigate. The supposition was that Clark was yet another example of an elderly, wealthy woman preyed on past lawyers, accountants and caretakers. Only the investigation closed with no charges.
Dedman, who offset reported the story, says everyone reasonably assumed something was amiss, just that wasn't the case.
"This was an eccentric, capable, lucid, artistic, generous adult female who had enjoyed the trappings of wealth," Dedman says. "She'southward interested in music and painting, and Japanese history, and building piffling castles, and her doll collection, and being generous to the people she knows, and even to strangers. That was the life that she wanted and that she lived."
The view from Clark's last regular hospital room at Beth State of israel Medical Center in New York City. (Photo from the book Empty Mansions) Courtesy of Pecker Dedman hide caption
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Courtesy of Pecker Dedman
The view from Clark'due south last regular hospital room at Beth Israel Medical Middle in New York City. (Photo from the book Empty Mansions)
Courtesy of Bill Dedman
Before Clark's expiry, the hospital where she had lived for so many years lobbied her for money for a edifice. In the end she gave the hospital only $1 million. What she did desire was to create an art establish in her mansion in Santa Barbara — and that will get a reality.
Meryl Gordon, who wrote about the Astor family scandal in Mrs. Astor Regrets, just wrote a book nearly Clark, The Phantom of 5th Artery. She interviewed Marie Pompei, a nurse who became a friend of Clark'due south after she no longer worked for her. Pompei saw the heiress most a month before Clark died in 2011.
"And they were singing in the infirmary; they were telling jokes," Gordon says. "[Clark] actually was all there until she went into a coma and died. She knew what she wanted; she knew what she didn't desire, but she also had a humour."
Dedman and Gordon paint a very different portrait of the reclusive heiress in her concluding years — quite different from the ane many people had imagined.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2014/06/17/312204184/-eccentric-capable-lucid-heiress-belongings-head-to-auction
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