Bellosguardo
Formal gardens in front of the 18th-century French-style mansion await replanting.
Heiress Huguette Clark’s extraordinary mansion is poised to welcome visitors
Written by Joan Tapper | Photographs by Dewey Nicks
Bellosguardo. The name means “beautiful lookout,” but that doesn’t begin to describe just how breathtaking the property actually is, let alone convey the astonishing level of popular fascination with the estate and the story of the last owner.
Perched on a cliff at the east edge of Santa Barbara, Bellosguardo commands a 360-degree view of the Pacific, the city, and the mountains. The mansion at the center of the 23-plus acres was built in 1936 by Anna Clark—widow of W. A. Clark, who had amassed a fortune in the copper industry—to replace an earlier home. This was no modest getaway. For herself and her daughter Huguette, Anna commissioned a formal U-shaped 18th-century French-style structure of more than 23,000 square feet and 27 rooms from architect Reginald Johnson, who had also designed the Santa Barbara Biltmore not far away. The interiors were grand, with ornate flourishes like wood paneling, detailed cornices, and elaborate chandeliers. There were six suites, a music room, a library, and an artist’s studio where Huguette could paint or pursue photography.
The grounds were similarly magnificent, from the floral-design stone court in front of the mansion to sweeping lawns and a gorgeous rose garden.
Anna and Huguette kept their main residence in New York City but made Santa Barbara a regular getaway until around 1953, enjoying the house, welcoming friends and guests, and participating in the town’s social life. After that, caretakers lived on the estate and kept it up for owners who never came again. Even after Anna died in 1963, and Huguette inherited Bellosguardo, the instructions were to keep everything as it always had been. And so it was. Though the furniture was covered, and the rugs were wrapped, nothing inside was altered, and the Chrysler convertible and Cadillac limousine remained parked in the garage. The house was largely unseen for the next nearly 70 years, tantalizing Santa Barbara residents who wondered what it was like inside the walls of the estate.
“After a long road of preparation, Bellosguardo will open its doors to small public docent-led tours.”
Huguette died on May 24, 2011, having spent her last two decades living in hospital rooms in Manhattan. But she kept up ties and correspondence and although her bequests and the terms of her will became embroiled in legal wrangling, she left the Santa Barbara property to the Bellosguardo Foundation. Their vision, says Sandi Nicholson, who’s been on the board since its inception, is to “open it as a dynamic venue for cultural and artistic events, while showcasing the unique history of the Clarks and specifically Huguette Clark’s contribution to the arts.”
And now, at last, that’s about to happen. After a long road of preparation Bellosguardo will open its doors to small public docent-led tours in the next couple of months. Visitors will be able to see original furnishings, objets d’art, and paintings. Walking through the high-ceilinged foyer, they’ll enter the main hall, which stretches toward each of the wings and reveals views of the reflecting pool in back, flanked by 80-year-old orange trees. Family portraits line the walls here, not only of W. A. Clark, his wife Anna, and Huguette but also Huguette’s sister, Andrée, who died young.
To the left lie two rooms crafted in Europe and installed here from another Clark property in New York: the reception room, with its exquisite paneling and painted muslin ceiling, and the imposing dining room with antique chairs arrayed around the table.
In the other direction lies the elegant music room, dominated by two Steinways and two
of Anna’s harps. The library is next, with bound volumes filling the elaborate shelves and a portrait of Andrée over the fireplace. Then there’s the bureau room, Anna’s office. European in origin, it’s even more intricately carved than the others and includes large cartouches with French-inspired pastoral scenes.
The highlight of the tour, though, is certainly the studio/gallery, in which the foundation has hung some 50 of Huguette’s own paintings brought back from New York and recently displayed at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum—images of models in elaborate dress, self-portraits, still lifes, even pieces depicting a New York cityscape. Painted over several decades, they reveal Huguette’s accomplished hand and her attention to her art.
Notes Nicholson, “The foundation will build upon the tours and gradually increase public access, not only to the house but also to the grounds, so that people can enjoy this momentous gift that the Clarks and Huguette gave to the community.” bellosguardo.org.
