The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark

by Meryl Gordon

  Carla talked enthusiastically about a small fund the family members had created to fight elder abuse, contributing $90,000 to be used for educational grants. If they won the case, they planned to put in additional funds. “We wanted to rally around something positive,” she said. “We’re self-made, we’re interested philanthropists, we have causes we’re all interested in, but this has bonded us as a family.” With a trial scheduled to start in eleven days, the trio were optimistic about their prospects, but still hoping for a last-minute settlement to avert an ugly public fight.

  Media outlets had been clamoring for on-the-record interviews with the Clark family members, and they had scheduled a session with Anemona Hartocollis, the New York Times reporter who had been covering the case. But John Morken had second thoughts about being perceived as trying his case in the press, and he canceled the family interview. The reporter went ahead with her story, THE TWO WILLS OF THE HEIRESS HUGUETTE CLARK, on September 13, four days before jury selection was scheduled to start.

  Any hopes that the family had of being perceived as the protectors of Huguette’s legacy vanished with the article, which painted them as opportunists. “I was very upset,” says Carla, with good reason. Dripping with sarcasm, the opening few graphs presented an unflattering portrayal of Carla, noting that she lived “an easy taxi ride or a meandering walk through Central Park from Mrs. Clark… but she never tried to meet her.” Hartocollis stated that “huge amounts of energy have been spent establishing whether each of the 19 living relatives contesting the second will had ever met or spoken to Mrs. Clark, and if so, when and for how long. The answers are sometimes comical.” The underlying message of the article: these people do not deserve Huguette Clark’s money. If public opinion mattered in this case, the story had just tipped the balance.

  There is nothing like a hanging to concentrate the mind. Even as the Times story was going to press, settlement talks finally moved into high gear. After learning about the all-over-the-map responses of the Holland and Knight focus groups, Jason Lilien and Carl Distefano of the Attorney General’s office did not want to chance a trial and the possibility of a winner-take-all verdict for the Clark relatives. So they took the lead in brokering a settlement.

  After a dozen attorneys—representing Hadassah, the Corcoran Gallery, Wallace Bock, and Irving Kamsler—argued with one another in Holland and Knight’s conference room in a Fifty-Second Street office tower, Jason Lilien opted to divide and conquer. On September 11, he called John Morken and asked to meet him at the Bryant Park branch of Le Pain Quotidien, a noisy café right across from the New York Public Library. Lilien sketched out his plan, insisting that Bellosguardo be preserved as a foundation but holding out the offer that there would be enough money left to satisfy the family. Then with Lilien as the negotiator and his colleague Distefano as the expert in the minutiae of estate law, they held separate meetings with the rest of the players. Sensing progress, they convinced Justice Anderson to delay the start of the case for two days.

  As is so often the case in settling high-stakes estates, Huguette Clark’s wishes steadily moved from the center of the case to a secondary concern. Even though the Attorney General’s office now supported the validity of her second will—which shut out the Clark relatives in favor of Hadassah and Wanda and the creation of the Bellosguardo Foundation—many provisions that reflected Huguette’s desires had to be abandoned in the quest for a settlement. The legal negotiations now pivoted around the $41 million clawback petition, the financial demands of the disinherited Clark relatives, the debt to the IRS, and the escalating legal fees.

  Huguette’s lawyer, Wallace Bock, and her accountant, Irving Kamsler, agreed to give up the $500,000 each they had been promised in Huguette’s will. In exchange, the clawbacks against them were dropped, and the estate agreed not to sue them for matters such as malpractice. Holland and Knight, the law firm that represented Bock, was paid $11.5 million in legal fees by Huguette’s estate.

  Hadassah had become terrified of losing the entire $31 million given to her by Huguette. The nurse’s lawyer, Harvey Corn, had been insisting in negotiations that she get at least $1 million from Huguette’s will, to burnish her reputation. Moreover, for symbolic reasons, Hadassah really wanted Huguette’s antique doll collection. Using the threat of the clawback petition, the Attorney General’s office forced Hadassah to settle. The nurse grudgingly agreed to return the $5 million that she had spent nine years badgering Madame to pay her. Hadassah also abandoned her claim to the dolls. But the nurse was allowed to keep the rest of the $26 million that she had received before Huguette’s death. Her legal bills would be paid for by Huguette’s estate; Harvey Corn and his firm received $1.5 million.

  The Corcoran Gallery’s lawyers came in with high expectations, demanding either the Water Lilies or a check for $25 million. But they had lost their leverage by claiming eighteen months earlier that Huguette’s will was tainted. The Attorney General’s office gave the museum a take-it-or-leave-it $10 million offer. The Corcoran took it. There was a sweetener: if the painting sells at auction for more than $25 million, the museum will get 50 percent of the additional proceeds.

  The financially troubled Corcoran announced, several months after the Clark settlement, that it was merging with the National Gallery of Art and George Washington University. The National Gallery planned to acquire 50 percent of the Corcoran’s collection, with the rest distributed to other museums. The fate of William Andrews Clark’s artworks was uncertain.

  Wanda had sent the message through her attorney that what she cared about was abiding by her godmother’s desires and that she wasn’t in this for the money. The Attorney General’s office took Wanda, virtually the only selfless player in this entire drama, at her word. She settled for $3.5 million plus attorneys’ fees. “Given the IRS bills and the legal bills, we were afraid we’d win at trial but there would have been nothing left for her or to support Bellosguardo,” said her lawyer, John Graziano. Wanda herself was sanguine, saying, “I am so relieved that Bellosguardo will be saved.”

  The winners in this free-for-all, beyond the lawyers, were the Clark relatives, those blood relations whom Huguette had pointedly cut out of her April 2005 will. Not only did they receive $34.5 million, but John Morken and his firm were awarded $11.5 million in attorneys’ fees. The family planned to divide the money along generational lines: the great-nieces and great-nephews such as Karine McCall and her brother, Paul Albert, would receive $2 million each, and the great-greats such as Carla Hall and Ian Devine would get roughly $1 million each. Since the missing Clark relative, Timothy Gray, had died in the course of the litigation, his share would go to his siblings.

  Huguette’s specific requests—to Chris Sattler, the caretakers at Bellosguardo and her New Canaan estate, Dr. Singman ($100,000), and Beth Israel ($1 million)—were honored under the settlement. But there was a twist: the clawback petition remained in place against Beth Israel, Dr. Singman, Dr. Rudick, and Huguette’s night nurse, Geraldine Coffey. Just because the hospital and Singman were slated to receive money from the estate under the settlement, they were not off the hook.

  The Clark family’s lawyer, John Morken, remained angry that Beth Israel had never tried to address Huguette’s psychological issues. “If they had treated her properly, she would have been able to go home and enjoy the last twenty years of her life,” he fumed. “This was a reputable hospital that should have been taking care of people rather than exploiting someone who was dependent.”

  In a coordinated legal maneuver, the public administrator subsequently withdrew the clawback petititon and, on behalf of Huguette’s estate, Morken sued Beth Israel, Dr. Singman, Dr. Rudick, and Geraldine Coffey for $105 million in damages. Geraldine Coffey countersued, claiming that she had been promised a bequest by Huguette and should receive money from the heiress’s estate, not give it back. A trial date was set for the end of 2014. If any financial settlement comes out of that lawsuit, the proceeds will be divided up three ways: the famil
y members will receive 50 percent, and Bellosguardo and the Corcoran Gallery will each receive 25 percent.

  Make no mistake, the attorneys’ fees in the Huguette M. Clark probate battle were obscene: the lawyers who lucked into this case were awarded nearly $40 million of her money. But a trial would have sent the meters for billable hours racing into overdrive. “It was a victory for charity,” Jason Lilien insisted. “Bellosguardo was created as an arts foundation, and the family received much less than they were seeking.”

  There was one last dramatic turn left in the case. The negotiations orchestrated by the Attorney General’s office had not been wrapped up by the time that jury selection was scheduled to start on Thursday morning, September 19, The largest remaining problem: the Santa Barbara members of the self-named Bellosguardo Foundation were still demanding to be involved. So at 10 a.m., the full squadron of lawyers gathered at a large courthouse room at 60 Centre Street to interview potential jurors. Hadassah arrived wearing an expensive-looking quilted black hunting jacket, skirt, and jaunty scarf, looking as if she’d had a makeover. With a flattering haircut framing her face, she smiled shyly at everyone in the vicinity. Paul Albert, Karine’s older brother, had flown in from California for the occasion to see the action firsthand.

  For an hour, the lawyers questioned potential jurors about what they knew about Huguette Clark, and whether they would be willing to spend two months or longer at a trial. But the larger message was how damaging the New York Times story had been to the Clark family’s position. As a middle-class professional Asian man freely admitted, he thought they didn’t deserve any money. “She had relatives she hadn’t seen who showed up,” he said. “Her second will gave a lot to the people around her and her caretakers. I have a bias toward the second will.” If the case had gone to trial, perhaps the family would not have made out so well after all.

  Suddenly, there was a flurry of activity in the courtroom. The lawyers had received an e-mail from Justice Anderson’s clerk, saying that she was about to rule on whether the newly formed Bellosguardo group had legal standing. After turning that group down, the judge agreed to suspend jury selection to allow a few more days for negotiations. Around midnight on Friday, September 20, the Times broke the story that a tentative settlement had been reached. The following Tuesday, the lawyers marched before Justice Anderson to present the done deal. The battle over Huguette’s fortune was over.

  The Clark relatives were jubilant. “Someone tried to take advantage of someone in our family and we stood up to it,” Karine said. “I’m so glad we did that.” Added Carla, “We came together, this choreography brought us together to become a cohesive family that we never knew we had.” They were eager to frame the settlement as a victory for a larger cause rather than financial gain. “We achieved everything we wanted to achieve, we got those guys removed,” said Ian, referring to Wallace Bock and Irving Kamsler. Ian, who had been chosen as the family representative to the Bellosguardo Foundation, added, “Hopefully, this whole matter will draw more attention to the issue of elder abuse, which is a serious problem in our country.”

  In truth, elder abuse had almost nothing to do with the resolution of the last will and testament of Huguette Marcelle Clark. There was no legal finding that anyone had preyed on Tante Huguette. Although even the Attorney General’s office believed that Huguette’s second will reflected her wishes, nonetheless it might not have stood up during a protracted court fight due to the problematic signing ceremony. In that sense, Wallace Bock won the family’s victory for them.

  When I interviewed him after the settlement, Bock was relieved that he did not have to make restitution to the estate. “I thank God it’s over,” says Bock. “To me the most important thing is that I’ve gotten out clean. I don’t have to worry about money I’m losing, money I’m gaining. It’s over.” Aware of the Clark relatives’ enmity, he was equally vitriolic toward them. “I think they’re pretty low,” Bock said. “They jumped on the bandwagon. They didn’t give a damn about her for all these years, then it’s all about how much they loved her and want her fortune.”

  How would Huguette have reacted to the way her millions were parceled out by these lawyers, total strangers who did not know her?

  Unlike her money-mad father, who was obsessed with building and preserving his fortune down to quibbling over a lost penny in a gumball machine, Huguette had never cared about her inheritance. She enjoyed living well and was adept at using her money to get what she wanted. But the woman who refused to acknowledge her own mortality never appeared to be concerned about what would happen to her fortune once she was gone. Viewing her inheritance as a mixed blessing, she was forever haunted by the fear implanted by her father that people cared about her only for her fortune. Money, love, and insecurity were forever intertwined.

  For forty-two years, dating from her mother’s death in 1963 until 2005, she had been told repeatedly by lawyers that if she did nothing, the money would go to her distant Clark relatives. Huguette was a healthy fifty-seven years old when the question was first raised and declined to write a new will. Maybe she felt a connection to these blood relatives, maybe she resented them for ancient grudges, but either way, she knew they stood to inherit and did nothing to stop it.

  Only when she was nearly ninety-nine years old, frail and recovering from pneumonia, pressured by virtually everyone in her life, did Huguette finally sign two new wills. And even in the first version of her last testament, her relatives would still have inherited. So it’s hard to believe that Huguette would have been terribly bothered by the final outcome in a Manhattan courtroom in 2013, as lawyers divided up the fortune amassed by her father, who was born in 1839.

  Huguette loved Hadassah but she had already elevated the nurse to the upper 1 percent of the wealthy. Their relationship over the decades had been a study in mutual manipulation and codependency that has the making of a Tony Award–winning two-hander. Exposed to the light of public scrutiny, their transactional cash-for-affection bond was unappealing to the outside world, but the two women had unequivocally each gotten what they wanted. They mirrored each other and saw what they needed to see.

  Born into a moneyed and cosseted existence, Huguette had never felt comfortable with that stultifying world and rebelled against some of the rituals. Rejecting the splendors of Fifth Avenue for a stark hospital room was in keeping with many of her other idiosyncratic life decisions. Belonging to society was important to her parvenu parents, and she honored their spirit each year by retaining her membership in the Social Register, but she never wanted to spend her time with Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Astors. Rather than lunch at the Colony Club and the Knickerbocker, vacation in Palm Beach, and grace the side of an equally moneyed spouse, she chose solitude and art for most of her adult life.

  Bellosguardo mattered to her. For thirty years, she spent her happiest times there. Even when she stopped going west, she could imagine sitting in her studio and painting while gazing out the window at the rosebush that Tadé Styka had bought for her. She could picture her father dozing on a lawn chair overlooking the Pacific, recall the sound of her mother’s harp echoing down the halls and the bracing tang of salt water while skinny-dipping in the ocean on a hot afternoon.

  She didn’t want the place to change, ever. And now she had passed that gift on to others. Artists could be inspired in the future by this serene spot that had given her such joy. Bellosguardo would not fall into the hands of a Russian oligarch or a Chinese billionaire. Huguette had now become William Wordsworth’s “phantom of delight”—“a dancing shape, an image gay, to haunt, to startle, and waylay”—and her spirit would forever grace the premises.

  Chris Sattler had not yet heard about the probate settlement when I called for his reaction, so I had the pleasure of telling him that he would receive $500,000. “Oh, dear God, I’m stunned,” he said. “I didn’t think it would happen. That’s such good news. I have to go tell my wife.” A few days later, we spoke again. He had been thinking back to hi
s last few days in Huguette’s apartment, before he had been let go in the summer of 2011. He had walked through the cavernous rooms, recalling two decades of listening to Huguette’s tales. “I was thinking about how lucky I had been, how fortuitous that we had been put together. I got to meet a very special person from a different epoch.”

  Huguette had given him photographs to go along with her stories: escaping with her family from France in 1914 on the USS Tennessee, surfing with Duke Kahanamoku in Hawaii, picnicking with her mother at the Grand Canyon. Chris had hung the framed pictures in the upstairs family room at his Long Beach home, a tribute to her unique twentieth-century history.

  He ended his tour of 907 Fifth Avenue in the twelfth-floor wood-paneled Japanese room, gazing at a picture that Huguette had painted of a geisha smoking an opium pipe, with an inscrutable look on her face. It haunted him. Every detail was perfect, even the ashes on the geisha’s hands. It made him wonder what the ethereal Huguette had been thinking and feeling when she painted it. For a woman who seemed so sheltered, Huguette’s fascination with the floating world of prewar Tokyo illustrated the complexities lurking within. “She was supposed to be unworldly,” he concluded. “But she had so much more knowledge of the real world than people gave her credit for.”

  As Sattler exited the apartment, he locked the door as he had countless times before, but this time it was different. Madame would never be coming home, and as the deadbolt clicked shut, it bid farewell to a woman who had lived through an era and a lifestyle that no one would ever experience again.

  Sixteen-year-old Huguette Marcelle Clark in 1922—the same year New York society was scandalized by her half sister Mary’s second divorce. Huguette’s eighty-three-year-old father worried he wouldn’t be around to protect his daughter when suitors came to call, so he told her, “No one will love you for who you are. They will love you for your money.” (Reproduced with the permission of the Estate of Huguette Clark)