Empty Mansions

The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune

By: Bill Dedman, Paul Clark Newell Jr.

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money?

Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world.

Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else.

The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic.

Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.

The audiobook edition includes bonus audio featuring phone calls between Paul Clark Newell, Jr. and Huguette Clark—believed to be the only known recording of her voice.

Praise for Empty Mansions

“An exhaustively researched, well-written account . . . a blood-boiling expose [that] will make you angry and will make you sad.”—The Seattle Times

“An evocative and rollicking read, part social history, part hothouse mystery, part grand guignol.”—The Daily Beast

“A childlike, self-exiled eccentric, [Huguette Clark] is the sort of of subject susceptible to a biography of broad strokes, which makes Empty Mansions, the first full-length account of her life, impressive for its delicacy and depth.”—Town & Country

“A spellbinding mystery.”—Booklist

What a story! Fascinating

What a story! Fascinating tale about a hidden gem of a woman and her family. the villains are unbelievable in their machinations and I am looking forward to doing more research on them in hopes of their getting their just deserts... and hopefully a lot of jail time and many audits from the IRS!

Loved it

I really liked this book! I also love non fiction..I definitely recommend it and I liked the narrator a lot.

So interesting!

What an interesting woman she was. She was born in the early 1900s, born into the lap of luxury and wealth. Her family was so rich that, I don't think she even thought about money, but she didn't seem to be arrogant about her wealth either. I was used to getting $100.00 from my parents at Christmas. Miss Clark would give checks of $40,000 or 50,000!
Well worth the read or listen on Audible!

The paradox of great wealth

I found W.A. Clark fascinating, and his accomplishments quite remarkable. Huguette Clark was less interesting, but somehow I was compelled to keep listening. The primitive and corrupting influence of great wealth was exhibited by Madame Clark’s physicians, and reflective of a greater insight into our most basic relationship to money. I think my fascination with the book was fueled by the fantasies that unlimited wealth inspires.

Wonderful story, didn't want it to end.

Such a great book, and so interesting to hear the story of Huguette and her family through the years. I will definitely listen again! A magical story, what she lived through in history!