Huguette Clark (1906 – 2011)

This heiress daughter of a Montana “robber baron” mining and railroad tycoon was a hence unseen recluse from 1930 until her death in 2011 following a painful divorce from the son of one of her father’s business associates after just two years of marriage. The owner of palatial mothballed estates in Santa Barbara, California and New Canaan, Connecticut, this Miss Havisham-esque character lived in a hospital for the last 20 years of her life yet spent $1 million a month on outgoings during the same period. Born in Paris, Huguette Clark lavished millions purchasing rare French and Japanese dolls that she dressed in Christian Dior but equally regarded her wealth a “a menace to happiness”. The only people present at her burial were funeral home employees. A jury trial in September 2013 after wranglings between disinherited relatives and the lawyers, nurses and accountants who were named beneficiaries become beyond acrimonious decided that her $300 – $400 million fortune would mostly go to charity. An amateur artist herself, if Clark’s desire to turn her $100 million Santa Barbara estate, Bellosguardo, into an art museum goes ahead, it will be world class. Her collection numbered works by Monet, Renoir and Singer Sargent.