Bellosguardo Foundation

Beginnings

The nonprofit foundation, which was formed with the help of the New York Public Administrator’s office and the N.Y. Attorney General’s Charitable Division Bureau, will work to determine the future of Bellosguardo, the bluff top estate overlooking Santa Barbara’s East Beach that was owned by the late heiress Huguette Clark. Clark died in 2011 at the age of 104, and, in her will, directed that this iconic property be used for the fostering and promotion of the arts.

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.

This Foundation will oversee Mrs. Clark’s Santa Barbara Bellosguardo property once probate is completed in New York State. At that time, this Foundation will also take possession of Bellosguardo’s furnishings and artwork, and Mrs. Clark’s extensive doll collection (valued at nearly $2 million). Negotiations between the Internal Revenue Service and the Estate’s Executors are ongoing, and are estimated to take another 12–18 months. During this transition, the Estate will continue to provide management of the Bellosguardo property.

As of October 2015, Bill Dedman stated that “The negotiations with the IRS seem to be headed in a favorable direction,” Dedman told about 50 people at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum on Oct. 27. “There seems to be some hope of relief from some of the penalties, if not the interest.” The fees have been accruing at $9,000 per day since her death."

The estate, along with the original classic artwork, vintage cars and other furnishings, is valued between $85 million and $100 million, and the maintenance costs are about $40,000 a month. “The board hasn’t really set firm goals, it doesn’t have firm budgets because it’s waiting to get ownership of the house and doesn’t know what the resources will be,” Dedman said. Until then, the mansion and the Foundation remain closed to the public.

Mission

Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider identified the foundation’s primary mission as “to open the Bellosguardo house and gardens to the public as a center that will foster and promote the arts.”

According to Board Member Ian Devine, as of November 2014, the board of the foundation had not yet formally met. He stated that when they do meet, one of their first priorities will be to focus the mission and develop a plan for the foundation's operations. The roles and responsibilities of board committees and individual members are expected evolve.

Leadership

The foundation's current President and Executive Director is Jeremy Lindaman who was a former political consultant to Santa Barbara's Mayor Helene Schneider.

Family involvement

The legal settlement of the Clark estate called for one board member to come from the Clark relatives who challenged Huguette's will. The current member Clark family member is Ian Devine, for whom Huguette was a great-grand-aunt.

Bellosguardo

The basis of the Foundation is the sprawling estate in Santa Barbara. It was the Clark summer home and sits on more than twenty-three acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, California. It is called Bellosguardo, meaning "beautiful lookout." The Clark family bought the property in 1923, and after Senator William Clark's death in 1925, Anna Clark, Huguette's mother, had a new 22,000-square-foot mansion built, designed by Reginald Davis Johnson, that was completed in 1933. The property has 1,000 feet of ocean frontage.

In 1928, Huguette was married at Bellosguardo in a private ceremony that was covered extensively in both the local and the national press. Huguette’s husband, William Gower, was a Princeton graduate and the son of William Clark’s top accountant.

Current trustees