Empty Mansions

France)
$60,000
Elisabeth de Villermont (Etiennes widow)
$29,000
Marie-Christine (Etiennes daughter)
$10,000
Hadassah Peri (day nurse)
$32,000
Geraldine Lehane Coffey (night nurse)
$18,000
Doris and Wanda Styka (friend, goddaughter)
$22,000
Anna E. LaChapelle (cousin)
$10,000
Mrs. Walter Armstrong (chauffeurs widow)
$16,000
Other former employees and their children
$68,000
Total
$602,510
    • • •
    Huguette also kept buying homes for the Peris.
    In August 1999: $149,589 for a second apartment in their old building in Brooklyn, the one with the flood. The Peris’ older son, Abraham (or Avi), moved in there.
    In 2000: $775,000 for a house in Brooklyn, so Hadassah’s brother and his family would have a place to stay when they visited. It’s worth about $1.7 million today. But the brother moved to California, and the house has remained vacant ever since she bought it.
    Yes, Huguette’s nurse has her own empty mansion.
    The generosity continued.
    In December 2000: $885,000 for an apartment for Hadassah’s children at the Gatsby, a prewar building on East Ninety-Sixth Street in Manhattan.
    In August 2001: $1,475,097 for a second unit in the Gatsby, because Huguette said Hadassah should have a nicer view of Central Park.
    And, the last, in August 2002: $599,000 for a house on the New Jersey shore, near Long Branch, so the family could take vacations together and so they would have a refuge in case of a terrorist attack, as Huguette had bought her own safe house in Connecticut.
    The Peris, a family of five, now owned seven residences—all but the first apartment had been bought by Huguette. The total that Huguette gave to Hadassah for real estate was $4.3 million. Some of the money was characterized as a loan, which Huguette forgave without any payments being made.
    “I told Madame I have many houses already,” Hadassah said. “Just to maintain this houses means a lot of money.” Huguette responded by also paying the common charges and taxes for the apartments.
    • • •
    The entire Peri family wrote frequent thank-you notes “to our dear Madame Clark.” They said they thought of her like a grandmother or fairy godmother.
    “All these luxuries me and my family enjoyed could never be in reality if not for your support, both spiritual and financial,” the family wrote in a card in March 1998. “I could never forget these wonderful things you have shared to us. I pray to God, that you will be rewarded with good health and long life. Respectfully and gratefully, Daniel, Hadassah, Avi, David and Geula Peri.”
    In other notes, the children told Huguette that their tuition and fees continued to rise.
    Huguette also bought the Peris a used Dodge Caravan minivan, then a new Isuzu. From the gift checks they received from Huguette, the Peris bought a series of other new cars, each one about twice as expensive as the last: a 1998 Lincoln Navigator luxury SUV for $48,000 in cash, a 1999 Hummer for $91,000 in cash, and finally a 2001 Bentley. And not just any Bentley, but an Arnage Le Mans, one of only 150 in theworld, for which they paid $210,000 in cash. The former taxi driver Daniel Peri was now driving a Bentley.
    Hadassah said the Bentley was a burden. The fastest four-door sedan in the world wasn’t a practical car in Brooklyn. “To tell you the truth, we never enjoy this car. So expensive to repair. You cannot drive it anywhere. You scared somebody going to bang it.… It’s hell. My kids don’t enjoy it. You are scared somebody going to steal it. I don’t know why we buy this stupidity, you know.” She said she prefers to drive the Lincoln.
    Those automobiles were not enough. In 2001, seventeen-year-old Abraham added to a birthday card he sent to Huguette a thinly disguised plea for new wheels:
    Dearest Madame, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the help you have given us. My development from a child to a young adult, during the past 17 years of my life would not be possible without your care, love, and support. I am graduating from high school on Sunday, June 10, and will be entering New York University in the fall. I am proud to tell you that I am old enough to drive. When I had my orientation at NYU, I had to drive my mother’s car, since the van was stolen. With a big family, it is difficult to commute with only one car
.
    Huguette wrote him a check for $5,000.
    The Peri children ran errands for Huguette, finding Japanese art books she asked for and ordering jewelry