The lavish Connecticut Cold War estate that was once owned by a copper-mining fortune heiress has hit the market for $25.5 million.
Huguette Clark was born in Paris to American entrepreneur W. A. Clark and his second wife and raised in the largest house in New York, which was situated on Manhattan’s Upper East Side across from Central Park with 121 rooms for the family of four.
By the early 1900s, W. A. Clark may well have been the wealthiest man in America, for while oilman John D. Rockefeller had more cash in the bank, the ‘Copper King’ had more assets under the ground.
During the early days of the Cold War in 1951, Huguette bought the 1937 estate as a place of refuge for friends and family in case of a Russian attack and later expanded it to 25 acres.
Surprisingly, she never furnished the property and famously spent her last days in an hospital.
The estate ultimately was acquired by fashion designer Reed Krakoff, former president and chief creative director of Coach along with his wife, Delphine, founder and president of Pamplemousse Design for a $14.3 million in 2014.
‘We Googled the house out of sheer curiosity to see what it looked like. We felt a lot of connection to her story,’ Delphine told the Wall Street Journal.
The designer also noted that the property was in excellent condition when they bought it as Huguette had renovated it to the highest level.
Over the years, the estate was updated with a ‘light hand’ to ensure its original beauty remained.
‘When we approach a house that has an interesting history, the idea is to serve the house and restore it rather than make it something it’s not,’ Delphine noted.
The Krakoffs spent roughly $10 million on their renovations, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The primary residence is spread across about 14,300 square feet and the entrance to the property is flanked by two gatehouses – one used as caretaker’s cottage and the other as a gym.
Apart from this, the house boasts nine bedrooms, 14 baths and multiple fireplaces in all rooms.
On the third floor, the couple added a playroom, which later became a TV and hangout room and have a theater on the lower level with a stage with vintage movie-theater seats.
The couple also replaced the curved railing of the grand staircase of the main residence.
Surrounded by open meadows, gentle streams and woodlands, the extraordinary property has been thoughtfully enhanced amid rolling lawns, wildflower gardens, specimen trees and a tennis court.
The estate has a four-car garage, slated roof, running balconies and geothermal as well as propane heating.
The designer also said that they landscaped around the main residence extensively, adding a roughly 1.25-mile trail for jogging.
She explained: ‘The deer know me. The idea was to make it feel like a park and less of a house in the middle of the woods.’
For lounging, the property also has a a 60-foot pool edged with antique granite, inspired by a design Delphine saw around a pond in New York’s Central Park.
‘We became a little bit obsessed and single minded in terms of really thinking about what’s right and what will look like it was always there,’ she noted.
According to listing agents Rob Johnson and Mary Higgins of Brown Harris Stevens, the property is unusually large, and if sold all together rather than in smaller acres, it could be among the most expensive transactions in the area.
