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Huguette Clark's Nurse Made Millionaire Heiress Feel "Like Family"
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 20, 2011
Modified Nov 20, 2011
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 20, 2011
Modified Nov 20, 2011
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When New York's last link to the Gilded Age, reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, died in May at the age of 104, she left her trusted nurse of nearly 20 years, Hadassah Peri, $34 million. Today, the Post delves into Peri's pending inheritance and the gifts that Clark showered on her and her family, such as the five homes she owns, a $204K Bentley, and doll collection worth millions of dollars. At least Clark didn't collect urine.
Until she was randomly assigned to Clark in 1991, Peri was a nurse who worked in Philadelphia and New York after immigrating to the US from the Philippines in 1972. The two spent almost every day together for 20 years in Clark's suite in Beth Israel, and would speak to each other every night before bedtime over the phone. According to the paper, the 61-year-old nurse treated Clark "like family," and Clark responded in kind, giving Peri condos on the Upper East Side for her two children to live in while they attended college, and paying her a $131K annual salary, along with a $5 million bonus among other gifts.
The Manhattan DA's office is currently reviewing the 2,800 pages of accounting drawn up by Clark's lawyer and her accountant, who both are slated to receive $500K from Clark's estate if the papers are approved. In her later years, Clark is reported to have spent more than $3 million on a doll collection that was kept in her 42-room home on Fifth Avenue that she never visited.
After she made a purchase, she told her staff how to arrange the collection. "She'd say, 'You put it in this room.' Maybe two years later, she'd buy something else that would go along with that doll," her attorney says. Clark also donated some of her priceless works of art to museums, and wanted a portion of her $400 million estate to go to an arts foundation at a California property of hers that she never visited.
Tagged
creepy doll collections
gilded age
huguette clark
material wealth
millionaires
possessions
rich people
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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