Mar 18
I blame it on myself
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I blame it on myself
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“Huguette’s girlhood home, the most expensive house in New York”
“When this modern palace is completed,” the New York World reported, “it will rival in beauty and richness the mythical palace of Aladdin.” W.A. Clark had selected the site in 1895, paying $220,000 for the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventy-Seventh Street, prominently situated in the middle of New York’s Millionaires’ Row, up the avenue from Vanderbilt and Astor, down from Carnegie. By the time it was finished in 1911, observers called it the “biggest, bulliest and brassiest of all American castles,” “the most remarkable dwelling in the world,” and “without doubt the most costly and, perhaps, the most beautiful private residence in America.”
The 121-room mansion was also Huguette’s childhood home from age five to eighteen. This was a fairy-tale castle come to life, with secret entrances, mysterious sources of music, and treasures collected from all the world. When Andrée and Huguette would arrive home in their chauffeured automobile, accompanied by a private security guard, they passed through the open carriage gates—bronze gates twenty feet high, fit for a palace.
The bottom half of the six-story Beaux Arts mansion was not so unusual in its day, and might not have stood out if it were W.A.’s bank building. But on the top half, every inch was decorated with Parisian Beaux Arts ostentation, a profusion of lions, cherubs, and goddesses. Oh, but the architects weren’t done. Soaring above the mansion was an ornate domed tower reaching nine stories, so pleased with itself that it continued to an open cupola. The overall effect was as if a lavish wedding cake had been designed in the daytime by a distinguished chef, and then overnight a French Dr. Seuss sneaked in to add a few extra layers. […]
Reporters who toured the home counted twenty-six bedrooms, thirty-one bathrooms, and five art galleries. Below the basement’s Turkish baths, swimming pool, and storage room for furs, a railroad spur brought in coal for the furnace, which burned seven tons on a typical day, not only for heat but also to power dynamos for the two elevators, the cold-storage plant, the air-filtration plant, and the 4,200 lightbulbs. As the girls pulled into the U-shaped driveway, they rode first into an open-air main courtyard and then under an archway into a vestibule decorated with a fountain of Tennessee marble. The fountain displayed a satyr’s head projecting from a great clamshell, while two marble mermaids played in the spray. Their carriage then passed into a rotunda, where the young ladies of the house could disembark.
—Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
Emma Roberts, (Instagram, May 9, 2014)
—Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr. (2013)
Empty Mansions
by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.
Genre: Nonfiction Rating: 5/5 Released: 10 September 2013 Pages: 456 Format: Audiobook Buy it now! I first heard the story of reclusive heiress Hughette Clark several years ago, when most of the major news outlets reported that she had died after spending decades in the hospital despite being perfectly healthy, leaving millions of dollars in real estate sitting completely empty around the country. Her hotly-contested will left the majority of her estate to her lawyers and nurses, sparking outrage from her distant relatives who believed she was a victim of elder abuse. The whole saga intrigued me, but it faded from the spotlight as the subsequent lawsuit made its way through the court system. Then I found this book, which lays bare the history of the Clark family and fortune and Hughette's life out of the public eye. It really is a fascinating story, with real life seeming stranger than fiction. While a good portion (maybe half?) of the book was about how her father, W. A. Clark, earned his massive fortune, the rest involved Hughette and her family after W. A. passed. After losing most everyone close to her (she lived for 105 years, after all), her grief was part of the reason why she decided to spend her life in relative solitude. Though she remained a cherished friend to those who she financially supported through her generous gifts throughout her life, she never truly sought anyone's company and even to those who enjoyed a relatively friendly relationship with her, they never truly felt as though they knew her that well. Empty Mansions explores many different themes, and at times I wondered if, in fact, Hughette was a bit crazy, with her manic bidding of millions of dollars on rare dolls that she just tossed away as soon as they arrived while ignoring the pleas of charitable organizations. On one hand, it was her money to do with what she wished, but on the other, as a woman whose sole joy could be found in playing with dolls in a hospital where she was waited on hand and foot, how could she justify the millions of dollars that festered away each year in the upkeep of houses she never visited? Do the filthy rich have a moral obligation to support the poor, especially when the money is doing nothing to contribute to their own happiness or well-being? I found myself getting angry at several parts of this book, when her nurse would "casually" mention a flood in her apartment building and be gifted with a multi-million dollar Manhattan townhouse, when her mother's antique jewelry was brazenly stolen by US Bank and Hughette wouldn't risk an investigation because she was fearful of any kind of publicity. On the other hand, though anyone who met her said that she was perfectly sound of mind, a grown woman who never outlived her childhood obsession with toys and fairy tales certainly seems a bit touched, and how can one be angry with a woman with such mental deficiencies? In short - because I really could spend days discussing this strange and fascinating woman - this was an incredible work of nonfiction that I think could widely appeal to book clubs and anyone with an interest in history or society.
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Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
There was an old lady who had all kinds of wealth, but lived in a hospital instead. Bill Dedman wrote this fascinating book about her and it’s the perfect nonfiction read.
I never bought a man who wasn't for sale
W. A. Clark
I CAN'T STAND THE CUTENESS OF THESE TWO!!!