Huguette Clark was born in Paris, France in 1906. Her father was one of the founders of Las Vegas, a former Senator for Montana, and was into mining and railroad business. All of those things allowed him to accumulate a pretty decent fortune, allowing Huguette to see a lot of the world, have access to higher education, and live in a pretty massive mansion. Upon the death of her father, Clark and her mother moved into rooms at a hotel, which Clark expanded greatly until it took up the whole floor. She lived a very interesting life, and was a very decent artist. She also had a large art collection, and she had exquisite taste in what she collected. She owned different properties, which she maintained, despite rarely visiting them. I wish that her properties would have met with a different end, but it is what it is.

I love old houses and historic homes, which is why I was interested in this book. While I did enjoy reading about these massive and amazing properties, I also very much enjoyed learning about Huguette Clark. She was a tremendously wealthy woman, due in large part to her inheritance, and it is always very interesting to see what wealthy people choose to do with their money. Her personal collections were awesome, from what I was able to uncover on Google. Her philanthropy was also a very interesting thing to learn about. She gave a pretty large sum to create a bird sanctuary named after her sister, and she gifted a great deal of money to her private nurse in her later years, as well as her attorney. Upon her death, the magnitude of her wealth and assets shocked me when it was listed during the execution of her will. This was truly a fascinating story about an elusive heiress. I am so glad I finally got to this book, and encourage anyone who is interested in family dynasties or wealthy people to read this.