Empty Mansions Mysterious Huguette Spending

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune (Hardcover) Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program (What's this?) I first heard of Hugette Clark when I read about her passing at the age of 104 in 2011. I was fascinated by her story, a recluse living for the past 20 years at a NYC hospital and for the past 50 years shutting herself out from the world. I could not imagine what would possess a woman to not live her life to the full. Why would she want to be alone? Did a tragedy affect her decisions? Due to her massive wealth estimated at $500 million. was she afraid that people would use her (I know I would be but not to the point of becoming a recluse). So when Empty Mansions was published I could not wait to devour her story and see who she was, who her family was, where did the family fortune come from and primarily what happened to this woman throughout her life.
The book is written by Bill Dedman, a reporter for MSNBC, who was in the market for a home and he decided to amuse himself by searching for extravagant stately homes that were insanely priced. One estate that popped up intrigued him so much so that he embarked on a quest to find out as much as possible. The home was priced at a whopping $35 million and has not been lived in since 1951. What is even more strange is that the caretaker of the property never laid eyes on the owner in the 20 years he had been employed. So the quest began for Dedman to research the owner Hugette and find out why with so much wealth would this woman not occupy not only the stately New Canaan, Ct estate but also another home in Santa Barbara and three immense properties in NYC.
His co-author,Paul Clark Newell Jr., who happens to be related to Hugette, brings more insight to her mystery. Her story is juxtaposed with snippets from Hugette herself. Newell explains that the phone calls with Hugette were infrequent but never the less was delighted to learn more about her as he tells us that she loved to talk.
She was the second of two daughters and the product of her father's second marriage to her mother. She married once for a very brief time and had no children of her own. Her father was a copper tycoon and her mother a beautiful French woman. Hugette was born in France and arrived in NY when only a mere child. She lived in extreme wealth within a mansion built on Fifth Avenue. She was very close to both her mother and sister and was bought out as a debutante. She had it all or did she. As the mystery unfolds we find that with her vast fortune that was an inner child as the authors describe her doll filled rooms in her apartments. There were also greedy people such as the head of Mt Sinai's hospital and his notorious letter written to his staff telling them that Hugette "is the biggest bucks he had ever seen." His balloon was deflated when in fact he found out that her gift was to be a mere $1 million. Poor Hugette was promptly removed from her exclusive room and placed next door to the janitors. Their excuse, "Her room was being renovated".
As we leave off on her life story we see the woman who decided to dissapear in the foreground to ironically become a whirlwind of a media storm as her greedy "relative" leaches contest her will so they may amass her fortune.
The authors have done a superb job researching Hugette with such intrinsic force. The reader is left mesmerized with Hugette and I did not find her story dull at any point.


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