Empty Mansions

Mountains of the disputed West Bank, just south of Jerusalem. The town was raising money for a sophisticated, state-of-the-art security system, including technology to monitor suspicious vehicles and alert military forces.
    Though Bock had never met his client, Huguette called often to issue orders, and whenever she saw Mideast turmoil on CNN or in
The New York Times
, she would call to check on his family.
    Bock sent Huguette the town’s fund-raising brochure for the security system. He explained that there had been several shooting attacks on the town and that one of its synagogues had been desecrated. “As you well know,” Bock wrote to his client, “I have never sought help from you for myself personally or for any cause that I may have been involved in. However, in view of your expressed interest in what is happening inIsrael and your concern for my family there, I am taking the liberty of asking your financial assistance in this project. I will of course leave it to your discretion as to the amount, if any, that you may wish to contribute.”
    Huguette had made gifts to her previous attorneys.She gave Don Wallace $130,000 in French mechanical dolls, so many that he had to build extra shelves in his house. WhenWallace’s secretary wrote to Huguette, saying she was moving to Europe to launch a singing career, Huguette sent her a check for $10,000. But Bock had never received a gift, other than a dollhouse for a granddaughter. Bock later said that he had expected Huguette might donate $5,000 or $10,000.
    Huguette filled in an amount on the second page of the solicitation, signed it, and sent it back. She had written in the entire amount the town was trying to raise, $1.85 million.
    Bock paid out the money slowly over the next three years, writing checks to the town’s sponsors, the Central Fund of Israel and the American Friends of New Communities in Israel. He said he had to fend off efforts by some in the town to use the money for other than its intended purpose.
    Bock went to Efrat in 2008, speaking at the dedication of the Efrat Emergency Command and Rescue Center. “So there I was,” he told the gathering, “an Orthodox Jew, seeking a contribution from a non-Jewish millionairess, for a project to provide a security system for this place called Efrat, which she had never heard of, in a country called Israel, which she read about in the papers but was not too familiar with. Fortunately, she knew that I had a daughter living in Israel, and every time there was a terrorist incident she would call me to make sure that my family had not been affected.”
    A plaque reads: “The security system for Efrat has been made possible by the generosity of Madame Huguette M. Clark. May the Almighty bless her with good health and long life.” Bock said that at first Huguette had insisted on anonymity, as she always did, but that she had relented as the dedication neared.
    Chris Sattler said Huguette expressed pride in the donation to Efrat. “She said she bought the fence to keep the bad people out.”
    • • •
    Huguette was just two miles from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, when Islamist terrorists killed nearly three thousand people in the United States. She had a personal connection to one who died: The son-in-law of her California attorney was killed on hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon. Although she had never talked with her attorney, James H. “Jim” Hurley, Jr., in the thirty-five years he had handled her business in Santa Barbara, Huguette wrote a note of condolence.
    After September 11, as the news was filled with instances ofdeadly anthrax and other powdered substances being sent to prominent people, Huguette was insistent that she not receive anything else through the mail. From then on, she received no mail or packages directly from the few people who knew she was at the hospital. All mail had to be sent to 907 Fifth Avenue, where Chris Sattler would open it and deliver it, or be delivered by courier from Bock’s office. Bock said Huguette often seemed to draw her fears from the day’s news.
    Despite her fears, just two days after the September 11 attacks, ninety-five-year-old Huguette was thinking of others.She called her goddaughter, Wanda, in Massachusetts to assure her that she was fine in New York City. They discussed the horrible events, and Huguette remarked to Wanda how glad she was that her shades were drawn most of the time.
CASHING