Bellosguardo Foundation

Last updated
Bellosguardo Foundation
Founded2014
Founder Huguette Clark
Type Charitable organization
(IRS exemption status): 501(c)(3)
Focusarts
Location
  • 1407 East Cabrillo Boulevard, Santa Barbara, California, 93108
Key people
 Dick Wolf (chair of the Board)
Jeremy Lindaman (president)
Revenue (2022-23)
$857,397 [1]
Expenses (2022-23)$1,031,551 [1]
Employees
10
Website http://www.bellosguardo.org/
Note: Revenue includes $212,800 in unrelated business revenue from event space rental.

The Bellosguardo Foundation is a charitable organization for the arts located at the oceanside estate in Santa Barbara, California, known as Bellosguardo, one of the empty mansions of the reclusive copper heiress Huguette Clark.

Contents

Registered in the State of New York, [2] the arts foundation was formed to administer the Bellosguardo property according to the provisions in the will of Huguette Clark, who died in 2011 at age 104. Well known in her youth as an heiress, and again in her later years for being a recluse, she was an artist, art collector, and philanthropist, the youngest child of Senator William A. Clark.

The great home sat furnished but unvisited by Huguette Clark and her mother after approximately 1951. The staff was under orders to keep the home as it was, and automobiles remained in the carriage house with 1949 license plates. [3]

The story of Bellosguardo and the Clarks figures prominently in the bestselling nonfiction book Empty Mansions , which is being developed into a television series by HBO. [4]

Scheduled docent-led tours of the home began in 2023 for supporters, [5] who sign up for free on the foundation's website to receive notifications of tour dates. [6] The foundation is awaiting action by the city of Santa Barbara on an application to change the use of the property, to allow for a broader program of public tours. [7] [8] [9]

The foundation hosted an inaugural fundraiser at the mansion on October 13, 2018, with more than 500 people paying $1,500 or more to attend. [10] [11] Public musical events have been held, such as a flamenco dance presentation during Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta. [12]

The foundation's annual tax return lists its mission as: "Bellosguardo Foundation fosters and promotes the arts by offering docent-led tours of the house and gardens with an emphasis on the architecture, decorative and fine art collections, and gardens. The foundation hosts musical performances, lectures and other events at Bellosguardo." Formed as a private foundation, its five-year transition to a public charity with the required substantial public support was completed with the filing of an IRS Form 990 in May 2024. [1]

Estate history

A sprawling estate on more than twenty-three acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Bellosguardo was the Clark summer home. It was named Bellosguardo, meaning "beautiful lookout" in Italian, by the previous owners, the William Miller Graham family. [13] The Clark family bought the property and its Italianate mansion in 1923. Senator William Clark died in 1925. After the 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake damaged the home, his widow, Anna Clark, Huguette's mother, had a new 22,000-square-foot mansion built in a French style, designed by Reginald Davis Johnson, completed in 1933. [14] [15] The property has 1,000 feet (304.8 m) of ocean frontage. [16]

In 1928, Huguette Clark was married at the original Bellosguardo mansion in a private ceremony. Her husband, William Gower, was a Princeton graduate and the son of William Clark's top accountant. They were divorced in 1930. [17]

Huguette also was instrumental in cleaning up the 42-acre saltwater marsh across East Cabrillo Boulevard from Bellosguardo, now a lake known as the Andrée Clark Bird Refuge. The refuge is named for Louise Amelia Andrée Clark, Huguette's older sister, who died of meningitis in 1919, a week before Andrée's 17th birthday. In 1928, Huguette donated $50,000 to the city of Santa Barbara to excavate a pond and create an artificial freshwater lake. She donated more funds in 1930 and 1989. Andrée is also remembered on the Bellosguardo property with a rustic thatched-roof cottage, built by the Grahams, that was renamed Andrée's Cottage. [18]

Huguette inherited Bellosguardo from her mother in 1963, issuing two instructions to staff: keep everything in first-class condition, and make no changes. [19]

Organization

Huguette Clark died in New York in 2011 at the age of 104, and in her will directed that the property be given to a new Bellosguardo Foundation for the fostering and promotion of the arts. The nonprofit foundation, which was formed after a contest over the will with the help of the New York Attorney General's Charitable Division Bureau, determined to open the property for public tours and arts events.

It was 2018, seven years after Clark died, before her Bellosguardo property was transferred to the foundation, after settlement of the dispute over her will as well as negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service about gift taxes due. [20]

In addition to the property and any furnishings and art in the home, Bellosguardo received Clark's extensive doll collection (with most of the collection auctioned off at nearly $2 million, and selected dolls kept by the foundation). [21] A public auction was held in January 2020 to sell the dolls for the benefit of the foundation, with a few dolls to remain on display at Bellosguardo. [22]

Leadership

The legal settlement of the Clark estate called for one board member to come from the Clark relatives who challenged Huguette's will, and one from the former Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington supported by the Clark family, and one from her attorney in Santa Barbara. The rest of the initial trustees were nominated by the mayor of Santa Barbara, and chosen by the New York attorney general. [23] The family representative on the board is Ian Devine, a great-grandnephew of Huguette Clark. [24]

As of June 2023, [1] the trustees are:

The foundation's president is Jeremy Lindaman. Mr. Lindaman was a political consultant to former Santa Barbara mayor Helene Schneider, who nominated most of the original board of trustees. The trustees were chosen by the New York attorney general's office. [25]


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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Bellosguardo Foundation, Inc. annual tax return 990 Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax for fiscal year ending June 30, 2023". State of California Department of Justice. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  2. ↑ "BELLOSGUARDO FOUNDATION INC". NYS Department of State. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  3. ↑ Dedman, Bill; Newell, Paul Clark Jr. (2014). Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune . New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN   978-0-345-53453-8.
  4. ↑ "'Empty Mansions' Series Adaptation in the Works at HBO from Ido Fluk, Joe Wright & Fremantle". 7 February 2023.
  5. ↑ Reynolds, Christopher (2014-08-27). "How to tour a haunting Santa Barbara estate that's been frozen in time for half a century". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  6. ↑ https://bellosguardo.org/visit/
  7. ↑ https://www.noozhawk.com/bellosguardo-foundation-starts-guided-tours-for-insiders-at-clark-estate/
  8. ↑ https://www.sitelinesb.com/bellosguardo-is-opening-for-tours/
  9. ↑ https://www.sitelinesb.com/what-to-expect-on-the-bellosguardo-tour/
  10. ↑ "Events". Bellosguardo Foundation. Archived from the original on 14 March 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
  11. ↑ Lehr, Tracy (2018-10-14). "Bellosguardo opens doors for first fundraising event". KEYT-TV . Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  12. ↑ https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/2024-08-27/bellosguardo-santa-barbara-tour-huguette-clark
  13. ↑ Redmon, Michael (2014-10-30). "The Other House at Bellosguardo". The Santa Barbara Independent. Archived from the original on 2019-10-01. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  14. ↑ Dedman, Bill; Newell, Jr., Paul Clark (2013). Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune .
  15. ↑ Dedman, Bill. "Bellosguardo: Exterior". emptymansionsbook.com. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  16. ↑ Donelan, Charles (October 3, 2013). "Empty Mansion Fills With Promise". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  17. ↑ Dedman, Bill; Newell, Jr., Paul Clark (2013). Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune .
  18. ↑ Dedman, Bill; Newell, Jr., Paul Clark (2013). Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune .
  19. ↑ Dedman, Bill; Newell, Jr., Paul Clark (2013). Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune .
  20. ↑ Magnoli, Giana (2018-04-01). "Huguette Clark's Santa Barbara Oceanfront Estate Transferred to Bellosguardo Foundation". Noozhawk. Archived from the original on 2018-04-02. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  21. ↑ Dedman, Bill; Newell, Jr., Paul Clark (2013). Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune .
  22. ↑ "Doll collection of Huguette Clark comes to auction". Collectors Journal. Retrieved 2019-11-06.
  23. ↑ Dedman, Bill. "Trustees named for Bellosguardo Foundation to oversee Huguette Clark home" . Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  24. ↑ Nauffts, Mitch (November 13, 2014). "Ian Clark Devine, Board Member, Bellosguardo Foundation". Philanthropy News Digest. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
  25. ↑ Magnoli, Giana (October 5, 2017). "After 3 Years, Bellosguardo Estate in Santa Barbara Still in IRS Limbo". Noozhawk. Retrieved 2019-11-06.

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