Huguette Clark estate trial delayed 2 days to allow attempt at settlement

Huguette Clark estate, "Empty Mansions"

The copper heiress Huguette Clark
 poses in a Japanese print dress
 in about 1943, when she was 37.

NEW YORK — A last-ditch effort at a settlement is delaying Tuesday's scheduled start of the trial to determine who will inherit the $300 million estate of Huguette M. Clark, the reclusive heiress to a copper mining fortune, attorneys said Monday.

To allow time for negotiations, jury selection has been put off until Thursday morning in Surrogate's Court in Lower Manhattan.

The office of the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, is trying to broker a settlement, attorneys said. His office's Charities Bureau has made previous attempts, but Clark's relatives, who are challenging her last will and testament, have not been able to find common ground with the beneficiaries named in the will.

 

It wasn't clear Monday night how close a settlement might be. Several of the more than 60 attorneys in the case declined to comment. Schneiderman's office had no comment.

 

Huguette (pronounced "oo-GET") Marcelle Clark was the youngest daughter of former U.S. Sen. William Andrews Clark (1839-1925), one of the copper kings of Montana and one of the richest men of the Gilded Age, a railroad builder and founder of Las Vegas. Born in Paris in 1906, Huguette was a shy painter and doll collector who spent her last 20 years living in simple hospital rooms. She attracted the attention of NBC News in 2009 because her fabulous homes in Connecticut, California and New York sat unoccupied but carefully maintained.

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Huguette Clark estate trial delayed 2 days to allow attempt at settlement