This is a fascinating story ... The Two Wills of the Heiress Huguette Clark By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS Published: September 13, 2013 150 Comments Facebook Twitter Google+ Save E-mail Share Print Single Page Reprints With flawless etiquette, every year from 1977 to 2010, Katherine Hall Friedman sent a Christmas card to the home of her distant relative Huguette Clark, a copper heiress whose father was once one of the richest men in America. She never got an answer. Enlarge This Image The Estate of Huguette M. Clark, From the Book "Empty Mansions" Huguette Clark when she was about 37. Related Books of The Times: ‘Empty Mansions’ (September 5, 2013) Huguette Clark, Reclusive Heiress, Dies at 104 (May 25, 2011) Connect With NYTMetro Metro Twitter Logo. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for news and conversation. Enlarge This Image The Estate of Huguette M. Clark, From the Book "Empty Mansions" Mrs. Clark, a copper heiress who died in 2011 at 104, in a self-portrait. Readers’ Comments Share your thoughts. Post a Comment » Read All Comments (150) » For many of those years, Mrs. Friedman, a branding consultant known professionally as Carla Hall, lived just across Manhattan, an easy taxi ride or a meandering walk through Central Park from Mrs. Clark, who died in 2011 at 104, but she never tried to meet her. Why not stop by? “I was brought up to believe that she was a private person,” Mrs. Friedman said recently in a sworn deposition, “and that everybody in the family respected her privacy. I never expected to meet with her.” Now, that very privacy has been exploded by a court case brought by 20 of Mrs. Clark’s grandnephews, grandnieces, great-grandnephews and great-grandnieces, including Mrs. Friedman. They are challenging the disposition of her estate, which has been estimated at more than $300 million. In 2005, Mrs. Clark executed two wills, just six weeks apart. The first, signed in March, would have given virtually all of her fortune, including possession of her Santa Barbara, Calif., oceanfront estate, Bellosguardo, to members of her family. The second, signed in April, cut them out with a nasty Dickensian flourish: “I intentionally make no provision in this my Last Will Testament for any members of my family, whether on my paternal or maternal side, having had minimal contacts with them over the years. The persons and institution named herein as beneficiaries of my Estate are the true objects of my bounty.” In that version, the lion’s share of the estate — the lavish Bellosguardo, along with furnishings, musical instruments, books and art — would be turned into a foundation for the arts. There would be gifts to, among others, her goddaughter; her primary doctor, Henry Singman; her accountant, Irving Kamsler; her lawyer, Wallace Bock; and Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, where she lived for the last 20 years of her life. Mrs. Clark’s longtime nurse, Hadassah Peri, would receive her rare doll collection and 60 percent of whatever was left — potentially millions — after the other bequests were made. (Mrs. Peri also received more than $31 million in property, cash and gifts outside the will, according to court papers.) The will, which was drawn up by Mr. Bock with Mr. Kamsler’s input, names both men as executors and, with her California lawyer, directors of the new foundation. The relatives are contesting that will, claiming that Mrs. Clark was coerced into changing it by people around her, who, along with the hospital, kept her dependent and exploited her age and vulnerability. The beneficiaries, however, say she was a stubborn, strong-willed woman who did only what she wanted to do. If settlement talks fail and the case goes to trial — jury selection is scheduled to begin Sept. 17 — it will touch on issues that many families face. How is wealth transferred in later generations? What does an elderly person owe relatives who hardly knew her and did not take care of her in her dotage, as opposed to the hired help who did? Do family ties still bind between people who have never even met? But what sets this story apart is the sheer size of Mrs. Clark’s fortune, and the singularity in which she ended her days: living at Beth Israel and paying her own way, as though it were a long-stay hotel. For much of that time, many of her relatives did not know where she was. Mrs. Clark belonged to an American kind of royalty. There are indications that she reveled in her social stature as the youngest daughter of William Andrews Clark, a copper magnate who bought himself a United States Senate seat from Montana in the 1890s. She put herself in a league beyond the Town & Country set, according to a deposition. She preferred a French magazine chronicling the exploits of royals around the world, Point de Vue. She grew up in California, France and in her father’s gilded 121-room mansion at East 77th Street and Fifth Avenue, since demolished, which had art galleries, a theater and a swimming pool. She was married in Santa Barbara in August 1928 and obtained a Reno divorce in August 1930, charging desertion. She had no children. Her only sister, Andrée, died at 16. All of her would-be heirs are her half-relatives, the descendants of her father and his first wife. They declined to be interviewed before trial. But documents trace a family whose ranks have devolved from industrialist to Junior League member to a consultant on other people’s wealth and in the youngest generation, a public-school teacher. 1 2 3 4 Next Page » Susan Beachy contributed research. A version of this article appears in print on September 15, 2013, on page MB1 of the New York edition with the headline: Two Wills, One Private Heiress.
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 16:34:58 +0000
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