Mysterious Empty Mansions

Here's a cool story I picked up from the MSNBC website.  It is replete with copper magnates, political intrigue, and mysterious empty mansions.  Huguette Clark is the only surviving heir of William A. Clark, who was a United States Senator and the second richest man in America way back in the days of the robber barons.  Huguette is older than God, and has no heirs of her own.  And no one knows where she is.

It is presumed that she is in a nursing facility somewhere, but any inquiries as to her whereabouts are rebuffed by her lawyer.  He refuses to divulge her location even to her surviving relatives.  She dropped out of the society pages in the 1950s, becoming a recluse and leaving behind her a trail of empty mansions.  One of them is in California, and has never been lived in, yet has been maintained by caretakers for decades.  She also had a lavish pad on Fifth Avenue and a Connecticut estate which she reportedly purchased as an escape from the horrors of a coming nuclear war with Russia.  She is attempting to sell most of these properties for tens of millions of dollars, and hasn't lived in them for decades, if at all.  She is about to turn 104 years old, but according to her lawyer has all of her faculties and regularly gives him instructions.  Wherever she is.

The backstory is equally as cool.  Her father, William A. Clark rose up from a modest upbringing in a log cabin to become a the copper king of Montana.  He was one of the true robber barons, and cared for little but his own growing wealth.  He was notorious for dispensing bribes, and bought his way into a United States Senate seat.  He served for one term, though he insisted on being referred to as "Senator Clark" for the rest of his life.  He moved his family to New York, and died at 86 years of age.  He was laid to rest in a cemetery next to Woolworths and Astors.  Definitely worth checking out the full story and cool pictures here.  Be sure to click on the "photo narrative" version at the top of the page to view the slideshow.