Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Empty Mansions 201

We ask that you turn off your cell phones. So i see some of you reaching to do that right now. Today we want to welcome the coauthors of the best selling book titled empty mansions the mysterious life of Huguette Clark and the spending of a Great American fortune. Bill dedman is an Investigative Reporter. An Investigative Reporter for nbc news. He received in 1989 Pulitzer Prize investigative reporting for his work, the series was called the color of money which was a series of articles in the atlantic journal of constitution on Racial Discrimination i mortgage lenders in middle income neighborhoods. In 2010, bill introduced the public there is Huguette Clark and her in the mansion to his compelling series of narratives for nbc which by the way became the most popular featured feature in the history of abcs news website with 110 million page views. Pretty impressive. Paul newell is with this, a cousin of Huguette Clark and paul has researched the clark Family History for over 20 years. He shared many conversations with huguette about her life and family. He also received a rare private tour of huguettes mysterious estate overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara. It is an incredibly compelling story, one that i could not put down. So right off the bat i want to both say congratulations to both of you and im sure many of our ideas members also have enjoyed the book. Bill, lets begin with you. When did you first hear about huguette . It was 2009. My wife and i had houses on the brain. The house values had fallen into financial crisis, and we were moving. My wife job moved from boston to the new york area, and we were struck as landlord. Stuck as landlord. As renters looking for houses but unable to afford them. Youve all been in that situation where your word about how to get in the square footage, how to find a driveway that our girls could ride their bikes on. We had houses on the brain. I was looking at the real estate listings just for destruction and saw at the top of the chart well beyond our price range the most expensive house in connecticut was priced at 34 million, but been marked down to 25. It was a bargain. What a deal. [laughter] it was a cozy charmer with 14,000 square feet and 52 acres and a river. I was curious who owned. I imagined it might be the chairman of General Electric perhaps. I looked at the town website and i saw a note in the sony records that said this house has been unoccupied since this owner bought it in 1951. That didnt seem possible. So i went over the next day to see it, and the caretaker asked me, he said, you know, ive not seen any clark. This is mrs. Clarks house. I get paid by the lawyer every month, a lawyer in europe sends me a check. No one has ever lived here. Theres no furniture in the house. I take care of the. It seemed more like a bird sanctuary. And as i was leaving he said, can i ask you a question . Do you suppose shes been dead all these years . [laughter] well, i didnt know, but it turned out that this was not her nicest empty house, and she had a nicer house in california, Santa Barbara, worth close to 100 million overlooking the pacific that she last visited in the 1950s. And the legend was that the gardeners were still at work and that the cars were untouched in the garage, and i didnt believe that, but in the book you can see a picture of the cadillac limousine and the oldsmobile convertible both with license plates that say 1949. And she had 15,000 square feet overlooking central park and three apartments, 42 rooms in new york city where the doorman said no, its been at least 20 years. Weve not seen her. The elevator does not stop on her floor. And so that started a hunt to see what had happened to this reclusive woman who, it turned out, was tied to an amazing american family. Her father had been thought to be as rich as rockefeller in the early 1900s, was known as a genius in business but solely to his reputation reputation in politics. We in part of the 17th amendment allowing for direct election of senators because William Clark was paying legislators to vote for him in montana. And he faded from memory and it was astonishing to think of the math, he been born in 1839. He was 22 when the civil war began. He was born in the Martin Van Buren administration and his daughter, his youngest child, born in 1906 during the Teddy Roosevelt administration might still be alive when barack obama was president. She held a ticket on the titanic and she was alive on 9 11. So thats what began pulling the string of the real estate listing, begin a search to find out what was her story and what had happened to her and why was much of her property being sold. And then you hook up with paul. When did that happen . This is after she died. She died in 2011 at age 104. She was two weeks of short over 105th birthday. And one of the relatives introduced me to paul instead you chos fellows might be writie same book, you should get together. And im very glad that we did. Paul, tell us a little bit about how, what was it like growing up . What did you know about huguette . Very little. As a matter of fact, even then and right up to the time that bill invaded her privacy [laughter] she was virtually unknown. Her father had been a very famous american tycoon. Clark county is named in nevada but even his name had faded. Its not an unusual name like rockefeller or carnegie, but im sure that it was partly because he didnt leave tracks. He didnt leave a big legacy in terms of philanthropic activity or other ways in which his name specifically was standing as one of the great, i just today we would call it a billionaire, but in this time, hundreds of millions of dollars. Paul, when was the first time that you spoke with huguette . The first time was in 1994. I have been chipping away for some time in terms of the general Family History, but focused more on her father, w. A. Clark, and partly because there was so little about her and at the time i was not even informed that she was still living. That had applied in many other instances within the family where we had family members, descendents of w. A. Clark, one or two i recall specifically said, well, i thought i saw her once about 60 years ago at a funeral. And i didnt have an opportunity to actually talk with her, but i think i saw her. So thats how completely blanked the table it is. Bill, lets start with mr. Clarke. A little bit about him. He was remarkable. If it the american archetype. Is born in a log cabin in pennsylvania, not before, but in middle income farming family that moved to iowa when the civil war began. Shortly before conscription started. He went west to colorado and then up to montana territory. Mining gold, and eventually became involved in merchandising. He was a merchant. He was delivering the mail, selling aches and pick axes to miners. He was lending money at two to 5 a month. He became the owner of some minds in butte, montana, and to the remarkable thing even though he had a wife and young children, he went back to Columbia University in new york to study geology here took his samples and learned a great deal and he went back and take a wealthy in copper and silver and zinc and gold. He eventually got his biggest earning was in arizona, the united mine, the most lucrative copper mine in the world in the early 1900s. He owned it out right, more than 99 of the shares, and he got into railroads, he built a railroad connecting los angeles to Salt Lake City and then on to the east, opening the port of los angeles. He was a visionary in that regard. And along the way he needed a walk and stop for his railroad to store water and pick up supplies, and that became las vegas, which he auctioned off the lots for at its founding in 1905, which is why its in clark county. But he sold his reputation from the politics, and so in the early 1900s he was on all the magazine covers. He was a wellknown figure in new york and across the country. Lampooned in cartoons and he was often he had a huge Art Collection. He would throw open the doors of his mansion in new york city to allow the public to tour the five Art Galleries. That was Huguette Clarks family home in new york city. 121 rooms for a family of four. Thats the circumstance that she grew up in after coming over from paris in 1904. There were the two children, huguette was the youngest and the first daughter. Her sister died tragically. Her sister died young just short of her 17th birthday of meningitis. Of course, this is well before penicillin. The family had great concerns. They had a quarantine power in the top of the mention. Huguette grew up in a household with a lot of fears, fears of kidnapping were at the forefront. Her sister was an outdoors girl, a girl scout. And after she died the family donated the First National Girl Scout Camp in new york state. Some of you may have gone to Girl Scout Camp there that the clarks gave more than 100 acres for the camp. Huguette wouldve been an early tenet at the time that her own sibling died. Paul, when the conversation began with you and huguette, had she gone into the hospital at that point . Yes. She had been probably several years in dr. Stafford i think was the name of which at that time was, it was a hospital that was kind of a hospital that celebrities patronized. But she liked the visit so much that she stayed. To residents literally became a hospital. Exactly, yes. But she was in pretty bad shape when she went into the hospital. She is a medical issues that needed immediate attention but theyre not chronic problems and they could be dealt with effectively with medicine at the time. How does somebody disappeared off the radar and why have the clarks not been remembered . The lack of philanthropy is i think the key thing. Theres a lot of negative things you could say about andrew carnegie, but we plaster his name on like this all across america. Rockefeller is similar. W. A. Clark was a philanthropic to the extent he gave his Art Collection to the gallery of art in washington, d. C. Theres a Clark Building there. Its a collection of european art. But the house was torn down. The businesses were sold. Its a common name. Its really a failure of succession plan, a failure of maintaining of a reputation. He worked so hard to build a reputation and society when he was alive. It also was that the male heirs to the family to dine. The great hope, w. A. Clark the third known as tertius, latin for third, who died in an airplane accident about clark dale, jerome. His wife saw the plane go down from the porch. He was with lindberghs friend and they were practicing flying with the windshield covered as lindbergh had flown across the atlantic unable to see out the front because of the gas tanks. He went down and there was a line of deaths of male heirs, and huguette and her halfsisters sold off the businesses in the late 1920s and early 1930s. And so there was no legacy left. They lived a very quietly. Im going to have you go up to the microphone over your. We have an audience paul, why dont you describe how you reached huguette to call you back . Im going to do go over to this microphone right here. Okay, over at this one. And then he has some visuals for us. Every going to start with the audio clip . Go ahead, paul. Set it up. The call please, paul. To return to the point regarding huguette, one of the first experiences i had in confirming that she was still living was at the museum in washington, d. C. , bill noted, w. A. Clarks fine Art Collection was assembled and is still there today. Its a museum that is about a half a block from the white house. So its nice and located within washington, d. C. Anyway, i visited that and it was probably late 1994, and went through the collection and talked with the archivist of their. She told me that huguette was still alive. So that was interesting to hear. Still alive but they werent exactly sure where she lived. They think she was still in new york, but they had no direct contact with her. Huguettes attorney, who had at the time been her attorney for probably 15 years or so, he was the interim, the intermediary for people who try to get attention, try to get huguettes possible, and that the answer was not possible. However, he acknowledged to the archivist that he had never met huguette, and he had been her attorney for all these years. And beyond that point another 10 years or so, and succeeded by another attorney who was affiliated in the same firm who never met her until i think after she yeah, i think he did meet her once a just prior to the time that she died. So thats how alone and how protected huguette was. She was very isolated. So i thought to write her a letter, and i wrote, prepared the letter, sent it to this attorney in washington in new york city and asked that he send it along to huguette. Get i think that i would hear back from her, get a response . Frankly, no, i didnt think that would be likely to happen, just based on her lifestyle as best we knew it. But it was within 10 days of that that i found a message on my answering machine, and im in and out, the niche of a business, sometimes i was away for periods of time, but i didnt easy contact by answering machine. And there was a message for me. Paul, this is your and huguette, and she talked briefly on that occasion that she wanted, she said i want to speak with you, paul. I very much want to have you available so i can talk to you. So i was delighted by that, but then frequently frustrated in that she left messages with no return number. And it just happened to reach me quite a few times when i was away and the only way i would have record of her conduct was on the answering machine. Later in the year of 1994, i wrote to her and told her that i was going to be in new york city, and it should try to reach me there id be happy to talk with her. So i arrived in new york. I was there to meet some of the members of the clark family, these would be fairly distant relatives of hers, but descendents of senator clarke. So i scheduled a meeting with one of her nephews, a distant nephew, who was dual citizenship but primarily a french citizen, and he was at the time the council job of representing france in the what do they call it . The consulate i guess, not the embassy but the consulate in new york city. In fact, he was with it in blocks of where we thought huguette was residing in this great 15,000 square foot apartment. So i got into new city. I had a late dinner that night and i came into the wrote about 11 00 at night, and the phone is ringing as i got in there. So i picked up the phone. She said, bill, i mean paul, this is your aunt huguette. She referred to me as her and. Shes actually my cousin to quit a nice little visit. She knew i had been there to meet with andrea at the French Embassy and another cousin of his who was known to huguette, although shed never met him. Yes, thank you. [inaudible] at that point the answering machine had timed out. I detect kind of a french accent. That was her first language. It was important for the senator to have all his children become cosmopolitan and speak several languages, and he pushed very hard for their high level of education. And france was a very important part of huguettes life growing up. She was born in paris in 1906. Her mother, you have to realize, there was quite a difference in age between mother and father. Her mother was 39 years younger than her husband. They had their two daughters, they always thought of themselves as french, born in paris, and then came to america into that great house in new york city. Which is no longer there. The father was so flamboyant, he was quite reserved and private, but a public figure and a show we won. They were quite public as a family as far as holding fundraisers in his house. But after he died of a great mansion was torn down. It was too expensive to operate and it was too expensive for anyone else to own. They were 31 bathrooms. Iif you wanted to use a diff one every day of the month, you could. And so it was torn down in 1927 after the father died in 1925. Mother and daughter moved down the street to separate Apartment Building in the same Apartment Building, overlooking the conservatory pond where Stuart Little raced sailboats. Im told that might be fictional. But they lived very quietly. A mother was interested in music, Chamber Music and huguette was a painter, and order an artist, a collector of dolls, a builder of dollhouses, a student of japanese history. She commissioned japanese model buildings of teahouses and palaces and residences at 50 to 80,000 talking with an artist in japan who would go to get pictures at the back of the house and send them in so she could work on her design, and to get the fabrics just right. She was a meticulous, quiet artist. Took a lot of photographs and was a collector of cameras. She had her passions, but direct complicity recluses but he seemed to be in line with her mother, not going up very much. They were rarely seen in the 30s and 40s. In the 50s huguette was done to go up to the french consulate of the street for Fashion Shows that would be held there because she wanted to buy, or study the fashions for her dolls. She would go out to get her the best of her three stradivarius violins. Should go out to have them we strong and maintained. She was a collector of paintings. She had a passion but they were very private inside artistic ones. And so we dont know that she was out of the house at all in the 60s or 70s or 80s, and she was in the hospital in 1991 and stayed there 7300 nights. She was still writing checks throughout the spirit. Jesper kurt yes. Her generosity was great. Most of her generosity was private a spectacular example of that is her nurse in the hospital, a filipino immigrant who was randomly assigned by Home Health Agency to work for this woman as a private duty nurse in the hospital. She was the day nu