Famous Reluse Heiress Huguette Clark Dies at 104
This is a great example of a story that is very interesting but often falls through the cracks.
Huguette Clark died yesterday at age 104, and over 40 years after she had last been seen in public. The super recluse was an heiress of her father W.A Clark who was a wildly successful copper mining kingpin. At the time of her death, Huguette was said to be worth in excess of $500 million dollars. Part of the reason this is making the news is because nobody is really sure where all this money is going to go. Huguette was only married once briefly and never had any children.
Huguette’s father died in 1925 and that is when Huguette and her mother moved from a house on 962 Fifth Ave to an apartment on the 12th floor of 907 Fifth Avenue. Eventually, she would purchase the entire 8th floor while still keeping the 12th floor as well.
In 1928 she donated today’s equivalent to $641,000 just so she could get permission to excavate a salt pond and create a freshwater lake across the street from her 23 acre mansion in Santa Barbara California. The last time Huguette visited the Santa Barbara mansion was in the 1950′s. It hasn’t been occupied at all since that time.
There is also a country house in Connecticut that also went decades without being stayed in, and is currently on the market for $23 million
After her mother died in 1963, Huguette fully cut herself off from the world, shutting herself into the 12th and 8th floor apartments. She had a total of 42 rooms in all in the building.
Very little is known about her. We do know that she was an avid doll collector. She is said to be a very quiet woman with a very very small group of friends. There are also reports that she was paranoid that everyone was after her money.
In 1988 she voluntarily agreed to move to a hospital and live there for the rest of her days. This fact alone is astonishing. She lived in a hospital for 23 years.
I have always found super rich recluses very interesting and I hope in the coming days we learn more about her as well as where her money is all going.
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Fascinating obit of 104 Y.O. Huguette Clark in today’s NYT – recluse daughter of a NYC billionaire, married once (9 months, “unconsummated”)
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