Every Christmas, Mr. G. is like a lost child in the wilderness when it comes to buying a gift for me. He never knows what to get me. Finally, I made an Amazon wish list. Just to be helpful. Since Mr. G. doesn't shop on the Internet, I have to transfer my wish list to a sheet of paper and hand it to him. Then he waits until Christmas Eve and drives all over town trying to find the items. Holidays are full of traditions, and that's his tradition. He usually gets frazzled and calls to scream about the traffic and the futility of looking for a music box that Amazon stocks in its Timbuktu warehouse. Meanwhile, I'm home, sipping cocoa and watching holiday movies because I did all my Christmas shopping on the Internet before Thanksgiving. Christmas is so much fun at our house.
This year, Mr. G. got me a couple of books. I requested one of the books. The other book was his idea. He appropriated a book I got for Christmas from my dad and stepmother. So everyone's happy.
|
Huguette Clark |
The first book - "Empty Mansions" - is about Huguette Clark. Huguette was born before the Titanic sank and died in 2011 at the age of 104. A relic of the gilded age and the daughter of a copper magnate, she had a fabulous real estate portfolio. She owned an oceanfront mansion in Santa Barbara, a French chateau in New Haven and an apartment overlooking Central Park. Yet she chose to live the last few decades of her life in a New York hospital while caretakers tended to her empty homes.
|
Clark mansion |
Huguette's father was W. A. Clark. His name isn't remembered today, but he rivaled the Rockefellers in wealth. W. A. built an extraordinary home on Fifth Avenue. The mansion had more than 100 rooms, a swimming pool, a grand staircase, picture galleries and a huge tower. It stood from 1907 to 1925, when it was torn down.
|
Anna |
W.A. was 62 when he supposedly married Huguette's mother, Anna. Anna had been his "ward." The story goes that she approached him and asked him to sponsor her arts career. A widower at the time, he sent her to Europe, where he established her in an apartment and paid for music lessons. A few years later, W.A. and Anna arrived in New York and announced that not only were they married but they had a young child. No one's ever been able to find a marriage certificate, and Anna was unable to produce one years later.
|
Andree with her parents |
W.A. and Anna had three children: Andree, a boy who died as an infant and Huguette. By all accounts, Huguette lived in the shadow of her more outgoing sister. Andree died as a teenager of meningitis, leaving Huguette as her mother's only living child.
|
One of Huguette's dollhouses |
Huguette married briefly but soon went to Las Vegas for a quickie divorce. She was happiest living with her mother and playing with her dolls. And her dollhouses. She commissioned dollhouses, including several styled after Japanese homes. She had a lot of money to devote to her hobby.
|
Collection of Paul Clark Newell Jr., from the book "Empty Mansions" |
Even in her 50s, Huguette was very exacting about her dolls and dollhouses. In 1964, she cabled a German artist with precise measurements for a future dollhouse. She also wanted a Rumpelstiltskin house that depicted hay turning into gold.
|
A young Huguette |
Eventually, a doctor was summoned to Huguette's apartment. He found that cancer had eaten away part of her face. Huguette went to the hospital and never returned home. She lived out her life in a hospital room that she redecorated with French furniture and plush linens. She gave millions to her nurse and generous gifts to her lawyer and accountant. A court battle erupted over her will, which left nothing to her living relatives. In the end, the relatives got $80 million and the nurse had to settle for $25 million.
I remember reading a story about how the relatives weren't happy that she gave millions to her nurse but nothing to her relatives. It was really interesting to read
ReplyDeleteActually, Clark is remembered, at least in the governmental world - Las Vegas sits in Clark County, Nevada, which was named for him. :)
ReplyDelete