But in a second will just six weeks later, she cut them out entirely. In her first will, in 2005, she left most of her fortune to the distant relatives, 14 of whom she had never met. She lavished $30 million on her Philippines-born nurse-companion, Hadassah Peri, and then tossed her another $15 million in the disputed will. Her attorney, who stands to gain big-time from the will, is under criminal investigation. Even hospital officials kept trying to hit her up for large donations. She was a sheltered, somewhat naïve woman with a big heart and a sucker for a sob story. Huguette was very, very generous, to put it mildly - a soft touch. Not Huguette.įor the last 20 years before she died in 2011 at 104, she enjoyed good health in her hideaway New York hospital room at Beth Israel Medical Center, creating lavish doll houses, watching cartoons with delight, carrying on a busy social life via telephone, and showering friends, caregivers, and others with millions. Whether her multimillion-dollar Santa Barbara estate, Bellosguardo, will become a hilltop art foundation, as she wished, or be sold by 19 distant relatives challenging her will depends on the outcome of a New York trial scheduled for October 17.Īnother rich heiress might have flitted between New York, London, and Paris, summering at her Santa Barbara hilltop estate, showing off her art collection. That’s the conclusion reached in Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune, a well-researched book by NBC investigative reporter Bill Dedman and Huguette’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell Jr. But she still apparently led a busy life within the cocoon of her hospital room.Įccentric? Yes. True, heiress Huguette Clark led a reclusive life despite her $300 million-plus fortune her mansions were vacant, and she had few visitors.

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