Empty Mansions

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
by Bill Dedman
456 pages
NonFiction - Biography

Written by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman, the pages of this book turn themselves! It is the intriguing true story of the creation of the WC Clark fortune (a contemporary of Rockefeller & Carnegie) and its expenditure through his last surviving daughter. I found some of the historical background to be dry reading, but was rewarded when the book reached the modern day.

Huguette Clark was WC's 9th and final child, born when he was 67 years old. She lived to be 105, dying recently in 2011 with over $300 million left of the original fortune - despite an extraordinary life & elaborate spending. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!

RECOMMENDED FOR: Readers who are fascinated by real-life rich people in society. History buffs interested in the Gilded Age and wealthy American families.