The daughter of U.S. Sen. William A. Clark, the mining and railroad tycoon who founded Las Vegas, Huguette removed herself from public life in the 1930s, secluding herself in the family's Fifth Avenue New York apartment. In doing so, she left mansions in Santa Barbara, Calif., and New Canaan, Conn., largely untouched.
Photos of Clark's many preserved yet uninhabited estates, published in a new biography, "Emphy Mansions: The Mysterious Life Of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Tortune,"provide a view into Clark's eerie hollowness. Here's a peek into the life and mansions of Huguette Clark.
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.
