Empty Mansions

copper king, looking proud in his dandyish white suit. Her dear sister with her bicycle in front of the family’s summer castle outside Paris. Huguette showed the doctor her California house, a palace on a cliff by the Pacific, and her father’s house, the largest in New York City, with a tower and 121 rooms, including one adorned with gold.
    Taking all this in, the neurologist wasn’t exactly sure how much to credit this tale of gold and copper, kings and castles. What did it indicate about the patient’s neurological status?
    Dr. Klebanoff turned to the nurse, Hadassah, and asked in a stage whisper: Is any of this stuff true?
    Oh yes, Hadassah said. It’s
all
true.
    • • •
    Settlement negotiations in the battle over Huguette’s estate began in late 2012. A settlement could dispose of the estate without a jury trial and could also clear away all the side issues, including the effort to recover Huguette’s $40 million in gifts, as well as the malpractice claims against Bock and Kamsler. There were two opposing teams in the negotiations, at least on paper. On one side was the family. On the other was everyone else: Hadassah, Wanda, Chris, Beth Israel, the Corcoran, Bock, Kamsler, her property managers, and the largest beneficiary of all, an entity newly created, the Bellosguardo Foundation.
    At first everyone gave only a little ground. The family began negotiationsby asking for 75 percent of the estate. Others at the table, even those ostensibly on the side of Hadassah, took the position that the nurse had gotten an unseemly amount already, more than $30 million. If she would give up the $15 million or so that she would receive from the will after taxes, that money would go some distance toward a settlement offer to the family. Hadassah said no. Her attorney said she would give up half of her bequest if she could keep everything she’d already received. Her resolve seemed to be stiffened by Hurricane Sandy, which struck the East Coast in November 2012, damaging at least one of her homes and flooding her Bentley.
    A new player at the table was the office of New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman. In theory, its role in the case was to protect the charities that might benefit from the will: the Corcoran Gallery, Beth Israel Medical Center, and the new Bellosguardo Foundation. That concern put the attorney general on the side of the will. But at the settlement negotiations, the attorney general’s staff seemed more focused on the huge sums of money that Hadassah had gotten. That concern left the attorney general’s office in a public relations bind: If it supported the will, Hadassah would get even more. In the summer of 2013, the attorney general began pushing for a settlement, supporting the will in general, supporting Huguette’s wishes, but removing gifts to the nurse and others in confidential positions. That solution could make available millions to give to the relatives.
    The Corcoran also complicated the scorekeeping by playing for the opposing team. Though Huguette’s will left the museum Monet’s Water Lilies painting, worth about $25 million, the Corcoran objected to the document, siding with the family’s claim that Huguette “was not mentally capable” and that she had signed only under the influence of Bock, Kamsler, and Hadassah Peri.
    This was most unusual. Why would the Corcoran, so desperate for cash that it had talked of moving out of Washington to the suburbs, oppose a will from a longtime donor who had left a Monet to the museum? One possible advantage for the Corcoran was that it was standing on the side of the living members of the Clark family, some of whom were already donors to the museum. The more money the Clark relatives wonin a settlement or jury trial, the more they would be able to give to the Corcoran in the future. In testimony, family members swore that they had heard of no backdoor deal with the Corcoran, though Corcoran employees said that they had been assured that the Corcoran would not lose its Monet in a settlement.
    The Corcoran’s leaders explained that they had no choice but to oppose the will, because they couldn’t be certain that Huguette was competent to sign it in 2005. Perhaps any incompetence was temporary. The museum didn’t return the $500,000 it received from her after 2005,when she had paid out half of her $1 million pledge. Nor did they challenge her earlier $500,000 support for the renovation of the Salon Doré, her father’s golden