Empty Mansions

this eccentric patient was for the leaders of a nonprofit hospital dependent on fund-raising. Here was a woman, well into her nineties, with something more than $300 million, and she was living in their hospital.
    The hospital’s doctors and managers could have treated the patient and sent her home, then follow up with a request for a donation. But they allowed her to stay in the hospital for twenty years, repeatedly coming back to her for larger and larger donations. They knew who was living in the darkened hospital room: the girl who could spin straw into gold.
    A month into her stay, Dr. Henry Singman alerted the brass at Doctors Hospital that his patient “was quite wealthy, the scion of a multimillionaire copper industrialist.” When the doctor told Huguette that it was costing him $20,000 to paint his house, a few days later she gave him a check for $20,000. When an air ambulance from Italy cost him $65,000 after he broke his hip, Huguette gave him that amount. Singman proposed to help the hospital develop an “appropriate cultivation approach” to seek donations. When a woman from the development, or fund-raising, staff met with Huguette, Dr. Singman introduced her as a member of the “public relations” staff.
    Doctors Hospital soon became part of Beth Israel Medical Center, in 1991, becoming known colloquially as Beth Israel North. The hospital president, Dr. Robert Newman, took the lead in internal discussions about how to persuade Huguette to give the hospital some of the wealth she so obviously was not using. In a memo to the fund-raising staff, he stated bluntly, “Madame, as you know, is the biggest bucks contributing potential we have ever had.” A specialist in treating addiction and well known for establishing methadone clinics, Dr. Newman started visiting Huguette three months after she checked in.
    The hospital worked on Huguette from the classic donor-development playbook.
    Step one: research.
    At the New York Public Library, officials researched W. A. Clark, trying to estimate how many millions Huguette may have had. From her advisers, the hospital learned that she hadn’t signed a will.
    Step two in the playbook: strategic cultivation. Show the donor that you know her and care about her.
    Dr. Newman sent Huguette cashmere sweaters, balloons, and gourmet chocolates from Paris. He had lived in Japan for three years, so they had much to discuss, and his wife, who is Japanese, visited Huguette several times. He introduced Huguette to his mother, who was in her nineties and had lived in France for many years.The mother wrote to Huguette and visited her in the hospital. They watched ice-skating on TV together, as Huguette explained the backstories of the Olympic figure skaters in their princess costumes. Huguette also shared a Smurfs television special with her. “I kid you not!” Dr. Newman wrote to colleagues. “My mom spent 30 minutes watching the Smurfs celebrate Christmas; she deserves a medal.”
    In January 1994, Dr. Newman wrote to Huguette:
    Dear Mrs. Huguette: I took the liberty of sending a copy of your very kind season’s greetings card to my mother in Nice. She frequently asks about you. My mother is an avid amateur graphologist, and I want to share with you her comments on your handwriting. “The most remarkable and admirable handwriting! I am greatly impressed by so much willpower, clear thinking and an orderly mind. Amazing.” Clearly, I’m a tiny bit biased, but in my humble view my mother is very rarely wrong; certainly, I agree with her fully in this particular judgment. All the best, Robert Newman
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    Huguette appeared to enjoy the visits by the hospital staff and insisted that they send her photographs of their children and grandchildren. She remembered their names and asked about their activities.
    Behind her back, hospital officials made fun of Huguette for her delight in cartoons and dolls. They advised anyone soliciting her to keep the focus on donations,“even if she changes the subject to Smurfs orFlintstones.” When she complained that the hospital had included her name on a list of benefactors, piercing her veil of privacy, one hospital official quipped that they should give her “one Smurf to make amends.”
    Step three in the development playbook: solicitation. Make specific appeals based on the donor’s interests. Huguette seemed to take the most interest in making gifts that honored her doctors. When she gave $300,000 for a cardiac lab, the hospital