This $25 Million Connecticut Estate Accidentally Exposed The Strangest “Reclusive Millionaire” Story Of All Time

ByBrian Warneron November 18, 2024inArticles›Celebrity Homes

The Most Reclusive Reclusive Millionaire Ever

Huguette Clark was 19 when her father died in 1925. Amazingly, she lived to be 104! She died in 2011!

Huguette died in a hospital room. That’s not particularly unusual for a person in their 100s, but Huguette had not been in that hospital room for a few days, weeks, or even months. She had been living in a modest, bland hospital room for the past TWENTY YEARS . She wasn’t in a coma. She wasn’t particularly sick. One day in March 1991, Huguette walked out of her 15,000-square-foot NYC apartment that overlooked Central Park, checked in to a hospital… and never left.

She hadn’t blown the family fortune. Huguette was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Her multi-decade hospital stay was extremely expensive. And even during that two-decade hospitalization, she used her fortune to continue not only owning but also maintaining her various mansions around the United States. Most notably, a 15,000-square-foot Central Park apartment, a 22,000-square-foot estate in Santa Barbara set on 23 oceanfront acres, and a 14,000-square-foot New Canaan mansion. She spent hundreds of thousands of dollars every month on her various living expenses and property portfolio. Her houses were maintained as if she would show up unannounced at any time. But she never did.

For nearly her entire hospital stay, only a few nurses and doctors knew her story. She never met her lawyers or bankers in person. She stopped seeing family members. She spent her days watching cartoons and making phone calls to a caretaker who looked after her precious doll collection.

Huguette’s bizarre, secret, reclusive life was accidentally exposed in 2009 because of the New Canaan mansion. Huguette bought the New Canaan mansion in 1951 after World War II out of fear that Russians would nuke New York City. For whatever reason, she never actually set foot in the home or on the property.

No one in New Canaan knew who owned the property. Considering the fact that a three-acre estate would be considered very large in the area, the mystery surrounding this 52-acre property that had been abandoned for SIX DECADES was irresistibly tantalizing.

In May 2009, 104 Dans Highway, in New Canaan, Connecticut , was listed for sale for the first time in 60 years. The asking price was $24 million .

Local intrigue exploded. An NBC investigative reporter named Bill Dedman (who lived in New Canaan) pulled on the string and ended up uncovering what is easily the most bizarre “reclusive millionaire” story of all time. Bill found Huguette in the hospital room and produced a story that became the most-viewed article on NBC’s website for years. In 2013, Bill and one of Huguette’s distant relatives released a best-selling book about her life called " Empty Mansions ," which I highly recommend.

Three years after Huguette died, her executors sold this home for $14 million. It was just listed for sale again, this time for $25.5 million. I’ve embedded a video tour below:

And here’s one more little tease. On Saturday, I actually got to take a tour of Huguette’s Santa Barbara estate 🙂 I wasn’t allowed to take photos of the interior, and the exterior is so huge that photos don’t even do it justice. Keep in mind it’s 22,000 square feet set on 23 acres of oceanfront property. The front lawn is three acres. It’s impossible to say what this home would be worth if it was ever available to buy. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

Huguette Clark’s Santa Barbara estate “Bellosguardo” (Copyright Brian Warner)

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ByBrian Warneron November 13, 2024inArticles›Billionaire News

Last week, a philanthropist named Daniel Lurie was elected to serve as the next mayor of San Francisco. Why are we talking about this on CelebrityNetWorth? Good question!

(Photo by Gabrielle Lurie/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Necessity Gives Birth

Daniel Lurie was born on February 4, 1977, in San Francisco. His father, Brian Lurie, is a rabbi. His mother Miriam Lurie (née Ruchwarger), goes by “Mimi.” Unfortunately, Brian and Mimi divorced when Daniel was just two years old. When he was four, Mimi remarried. Daniel’s new stepfather was a guy named Peter E. Haas.

Peter Haas was born in 1918, the son of Walter A. Haas and Elise Haas (née Stern). Walter’s father was a German immigrant who founded a grocery store called Hellman, Haas, and Company. Today, that grocery store is called Smart & Final. But this is not the invention/fortune we’re talking about today.

Peter’s mother, Elise, was the daughter of Sigmund Stern. Sigmund was the son of David and Fanny Stern (née Strauss). In the 1840s, Fanny and David operated a modest clothing and merchandise import company in San Francisco.

In the late 1840s, gold was discovered in Northern California. What we now call the “Gold Rush of 1849” inspired an estimated 300,000 people from all over the world to flock to California to seek their own gold fortunes. Miners became known as “49ers.” They toiled tirelessly for years in grueling conditions.

At the time, most work pants used by the average 49er were made out of canvas. Canvas could rip to shreds after a few days of mining so most 49ers took to laboring in their skivvies because their pants were so bad.

As the gold rush boomed, Fanny Stern’s brother moved out to San Francisco to work in the family business. He was intrigued by the obvious flaw created by canvas pants, so he got to work seeking a better alternative.

This budding entrepreneur’s goal was to create a pair of pants made of extremely durable fabric. Fabric that wouldn’t rip even under the most grueling gold mining conditions. The fabric he landed on was denim.

To make the pants extra reinforced, he added one more innovation: Circular metal rivets at various stress points, like the pocket corners.

The design was patented in 1873.

If you’ll recall from a moment ago, Fanny Stern was born Fanny Strauss. Fanny’s brother was named Levi. His patented invention was Levi Strauss denim jeans.

Levi Strauss

When Levi died on September 26, 1902, at the age of 73, he left behind an estate valued at $30 million . That’s the same as around $900 million in today’s dollars. He was never married and had no kids. He left the majority of his wealth to various charities and orphanages.

He left his company, plus $6 million in working capital, to his four nephews. One of those nephews was Sigmund Stern. In 1914, Sigmond’s daughter Elise married Walter A. Haas. For the next 100+ years, members of the Haas family have controlled and been enriched by Levi Strauss’s invention.

Walter A. Haas had three children. A daughter named Rhoda and two sons, Walter Jr. and Peter E. Haas . In 1981, Peter married a recently divorced single mom named Mimi Lurie. Peter died in 2005 at the age of 86. He left his entire fortune to Mimi.

The Haas family took Levi Strauss public in 1971. They took it private in 1985. In 2019, they took it public again . When Levi Strauss went public in 2019, roughly 200 Haas family members owned a collective 63% of the company. The largest individual shareholder, with a 17% stake, was… Mimi Haas. The widow of the great-grand-nephew of Levi.

Today, she owns around 11% of the company, which has a current market cap of just under $7 billion. That means today, Mimi Haas has a net worth of $1.5 billion .

The extended Haas family is worth a collective $5.5 billion , all thanks to a single invention patented by a man who, to many of them, would be their great-great-grandfather’s grand-uncle-in-law.

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This $25 Million Connecticut Estate Accidentally Exposed The Strangest “Reclusive Millionaire” Story Of All Time#

ByBrian Warneron November 18, 2024inArticles›Celebrity Homes#

The Most Reclusive Reclusive Millionaire Ever#

San Francisco’s Next Mayor Is A Billionaire Heir Thanks To His Stepfather’s Great-Grand-Uncle-In-Law And… One Of America’s Best Inventions#

ByBrian Warneron November 13, 2024inArticles›Billionaire News#

Necessity Gives Birth#