According to Bill Dedman, reporter for NBC News and the co-author of “Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark,” fashion designer Reed Krakoff and his wife have purchased the “extra” mansion owned by the reclusive heiress Huguette Clark. Having sat empty for over 60 years, the French-style chateau located on 52 wooded acres in New Canaan, Conn., has been purchased for $14 million. Reed told NBC news he “planned to live there quietly with his family.”
Clark never moved into the estate. Instead, her “extra” mansion was intended to be a safe haven if New York City was under nuclear attack:
“The heiress to a copper fortune bought the home with 14,266 square feet of floor space in 1951 as a refuge during the Cold War. But she never moved in any furniture into the unoccupied house. It became the subject of local lore in affluent New Canaan, where some townspeople said the owner had not moved in after her new husband died at sea on the honeymoon. That wasn’t true. The long-divorced heiress told her friends and employees that she intended it as a place that they all could go if New York City were threatened by nuclear attack.” – read more from NBC
