Author: Bill Dedman Publisher: Ballantine Books ISBN: 0345534522 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 498
Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Janet Maslin, The New York Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch 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. Praise for Empty Mansions “An amazing story of profligate wealth . . . an outsized tale of rags-to-riches prosperity.”—The New York Times “An evocative and rollicking read, part social history, part hothouse mystery, part grand guignol.”—The Daily Beast “Fascinating . . . [a] haunting true-life tale.”—People “One of those incredible stories that you didn’t even know existed. It filled a void.”—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show “Thrilling . . . deliciously scandalous.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Author: Anna Sargent Publisher: Archway Publishing ISBN: 1665762993 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
In early Victorian-era England, Constance Clark finds herself faced with the opportunity to leave home for the first time to explore France. She must leave behind her family and her beloved Jackson to see if the dresses she has been designing since she was little are worth anything. The life of a seamstress in the bustling city of Paris is nothing like the simplicity of the English countryside and Constance is forced to grow up when confronted by dangerous and vindictive characters. With an ocean separating them will Jackson wait for Constance? When her letters go unanswered Constance is faced with the reality that she may never be able to tell Jackson she loves him or that he may never listen.
Author: Liz Brown Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0143132903 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 401
Book Description
"Twilight Man is biography, romance, and nonfiction mystery, carrying with it the bite of fiction." -- Los Angeles Review of Books “In Twilight Man, Liz Brown uncovers a noir fairytale, a new glimpse into the opulent Gilded Age empire of the Clark family.” —Bill Dedman, co-author of The New York Times bestseller Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune The unbelievable true story of Harrison Post--the enigmatic lover of one of the richest men in 1920s Hollywood--and the battle for a family fortune. In the booming 1920s, William Andrews Clark Jr. was one of the richest, most respected men in Los Angeles. The son of the mining tycoon known as "The Copper King of Montana," Clark launched the Los Angeles Philharmonic and helped create the Hollywood Bowl. He was also a man with secrets, including a lover named Harrison Post. A former salesclerk, Post enjoyed a lavish existence among Hollywood elites, but the men's money--and their homosexuality--made them targets, for the district attorney, their employees and, in Post's case, his own family. When Clark died suddenly, Harrison Post inherited a substantial fortune--and a wealth of trouble. From Prohibition-era Hollywood to Nazi prison camps to Mexico City nightclubs, Twilight Man tells the story of an illicit love and the battle over a family estate that would destroy one man's life. Harrison Post was forgotten for decades, but after a chance encounter with his portrait, Liz Brown, Clark's great-grandniece, set out to learn his story. Twilight Man is more than just a biography. It is an exploration of how families shape their own legacies, and the lengths they will go in order to do so.
Author: Teri B. Clark Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Company ISBN: 0910627983 Category : Real estate investment Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
The book covers property selection, tenant selection, inspecting premises, marketing and advertising of property, showing the property, tenant application, credit verification, employment and income verification, reference verification, lease agreement, deposits, walkthrough with tenant, collection of rent, late notices and collecting fees, statements, owner's proceeds, tenant complaints and requests, repairs, use of contractors, compliance with state and local regulation, property inspection after tenant leaves, deposit refund, accounting and computer software, income and expense, depreciation, a special section on using computers and the Internet, landlord tenant laws for all 50 states, federal housing regulations and disclosure information, legal issues, real estate terminology, techniques, advice, real estate management tools and software. Includes over 25 forms for use in the business.
Author: Clark Howard Publisher: Hyperion ISBN: 9781401307851 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
One of America's leading consumer advocates and popular talk show hosts offers his tips and tricks to successfully buying and selling real estate -- in any market Real estate -- whether in a boom or a bust economy -- is still a good investment, but only if you make smart and patient choices. There is a lot of confusing information out there, and many people find it increasingly difficult to navigate the ever-changing world of real estate without losing their shirts, or their minds. In Clark Smart Real Estate, talk show host and bestselling author Clark Howard presents the best of his experience as a consumer advocate. In his simple and clear style, he shows readers how they can build wealth slowly over time through real estate, and how they can capitalize on -- and protect themselves from -- the real estate market's many fluctuations over the long term. Following his own "save more, spend less, and avoid ripoffs," philosophy, Howard encourages people to get "Clark Smart" and lays out practical and information-packed answers to common questions anyone interested in real estate might have about buying, selling, or financing. When should you buy your first home? Is it better to purchase a preexisting house or one newly built? What are some hidden closing costs, and how can you avoid them? Should you sell your home yourself? How does one shop for a mortgage? What are the costs of refinancing? Sound advice in a handy format -- this is what Clark Howard's readers have been waiting for, and it's just in time to help the multitudes flummoxed by today's conflicting real estate market.
Author: Mary Higgins Clark Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 0743206282 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 213
Book Description
A dashing ex-president and his young congresswoman bride become an irresistible sleuthing duo in four acclaimed stories from the #1 New York Times bestselling Queen of Suspense. Henry Parker Britland IV—wealthy, worldly, and popular—is enjoying an early retirement. His new wife, Sunday—as clever as she is lovely—has just been elected to Congress in a stunning upset victory that has made her a media darling. Henry and Sunday make a formidable team...and never more so than when they set out to solve baffling high-society crimes. From a long-unsolved case they reconstruct aboard the presidential yacht to a kidnapping that brings Henry frantically back to the White House, the former president and his bride engage in some of the most audacious and original sleuthing ever imagined. Only Mary Higgins Clark can so seamlessly meld spellbinding suspense, wit, and romance. My Gal Sunday is entertainment of the highest order.
Author: Elizabeth Urban Alexander Publisher: LSU Press ISBN: 0807130249 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 327
Book Description
The legal crusade of Myra Clark Gaines (1804?--1885) has all the trappings of classic melodrama -- a lost heir, a missing will, an illicit relationship, a questionable marriage, a bigamous husband, and a murder. For a half century the daughter of New Orleans millionaire Daniel Clark struggled to justify her claim to his enormous fortune in a case that captivated the nineteenth-century public. Elizabeth Urban Alexander taps voluminous court records and letters to unravel the twists and turns of Gaines's litigation and reveal the truth behind the mysterious saga of this notorious woman. Myra, the daughter of real estate heir Clark and Zulime Carrière, a beautiful young Frenchwoman, was raised by friends of Clark and kept ignorant of her real parentage until 1832, when she discovered her true lineage in letters among her foster father's papers. She thereupon returned to Louisiana with tales of a lost will and a secret marriage between Clark and Carrière and claimed to be Clark's missing heir. Was Myra the legitimate daughter of the prominent merchant or the "fruit of an adulterous union?" The courts would decide. The Great Gaines Case wound its tortuous path through the United States legal system from 1834 until 1891. It was considered by the U.S. Supreme Court seventeen times and pursued even after Gaines's death by lawyers trying to recoup fees. By courageously bringing her case to the courtroom and doggedly keeping it there, Alexander asserts, Gaines helped instigate a new type of family law that provided special protection of women, children, and marriages. Though Gaines never recovered more than a tiny fraction of the rumored millions, this riveting chronicle of her struggle for legitimacy and legacy as told by Elizabeth Urban Alexander is a gold mine for anyone interested in legal history, women's studies, or a good yarn superbly spun.
Author: Bill Dedman
Author: Anna Sargent
Author: Gordon Matta-Clark
Author: Kenneth A. Ehrman
Author: Liz Brown
Author: Teri B. Clark
Author: Robert Herrick
Author: Clark Howard
Author: Mary Higgins Clark
Author: Elizabeth Urban Alexander