Bellosguardo Foundation


The Bellosguardo Foundation is a philanthropic organization and private foundation 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.
Registered in the State of New York, 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 later years for being a recluse, she was an artist, art collector, and philanthropist, the youngest child of Sen. 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, as described in the Clark biography Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
After receiving the Clark property in 2018, 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.
Although the home is not yet open for regular tours, the Bellosguardo Foundation's website describes its vision of the future: "Now, Huguette has bequeathed the property to the Bellosguardo Foundation, which is committed to both honoring the Clarks' past, and building a future where the estate can be enjoyed by all as a focal point for the arts. Realizing that future will take time and commitment, but the fruits of that labor will be well worth the effort. Be it coming up to enjoy a family picnic by the rose garden, delve into the estate's history, view art from institutions around the world, or take in a jazz recital on the lawn, Bellosguardo will become a new home for art, music, history, and culture on the California coast."

Estate history

The 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. 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. The property has 1,000 feet of ocean frontage.
In 1928, Huguette was married at the original Bellosguardo mansion in a private ceremony. Huguette's husband, William Gower, was a Princeton graduate and the son of William Clark's top accountant. They were divorced in 1930.
She 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, her older sister, who died of meningitis in 1919, a week before Andrée's 17th birthday. In 1928, Huguette Clark 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.
Huguette Clark inherited Bellosguardo from her mother in 1963, issuing two instructions to staff: Keep everything in first-class condition, and make no changes.

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, will work to determine the future of Bellosguardo.
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.
In addition to the property and any furnishings and art in the home, Bellosguardo received Clark's extensive doll collection. A public auction was scheduled in January 2020 to sell the dolls for the benefit of the foundation, with a small number of dolls to remain on display at Bellosguardo.

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 Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, and one from her attorney in Santa Barbara, Jim Hurley. The rest of the trustees are nominated by the mayor of Santa Barbara. All are approved by the New York attorney general. The family representative on the board is Ian Devine, for whom Huguette was a great-grand-aunt.
The foundation's President is Jeremy Lindaman, who was a political consultant to former Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider, who nominated most of the original board of trustees.. The foundation's latest annual tax return shows Lindaman's salary is $75,000 per year.

Trustees

As of September 2019, the trustees are: