When Huguette Clark passed away in 2011 at the age of 104, she left behind a fortune worth $300 million. But just-released photos reveal that many of the trappings of the heiress's fortune were abandoned long before her death.
Huguette was trained on the violin and at one point owned three instruments made by the Stradivari, the renowned violin-making family of the 17th and 18th centuries.
View from the roof of the Clark apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York City
The Clark family’s country retreat, Le Beau Château
Stefenturner.com via Barbara Cleary’s Realty Guild, from the book "Empty Mansions."
There's no bell, no buzzer, only a sign of warning outside the faded serpentine wall by the caretaker cottages of the 52-acre Le Beau Château, in New Canaan, Conn. No one has lived in it since 1951.
A two-story addition at Le Beau Château
Stefenturner.com via Barbara Cleary’s Realty Guild, from the book "Empty Mansions."
The spiral front staircase of Le Beau Château
Stefenturner.com via Barbara Cleary’s Realty Guild, from the book "Empty Mansions."
Huguette's mother Anna's bedroom in about 1940 at Bellosguardo in Santa Barbara. A painting by Sargent hangs next to the window, showing a woman dancing the tarantella for a man on a rooftop in Capri. A photo of elder daughter Andrée is next to the lamp.
This is one of the rooms said to have originally been in the old Clark Mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York. The 167 vertical panels are each unique, carved from a single piece of black oak. The ceiling has a whimsical border with gargoyles and classical figures. This photo is from about 1940.
Concerned with disrupting the layout of the house, a servant reportedly left the following note: "On 29 November 2001, I moved a white, wooden step stool from this room to the Main Wing elevator as an aid to rescue in case the elevator gets stuck. Harris."
