According to a September 13th (2010) report on the something called Times of the Internet (via the not always reliable National Enquirer), billionaire domestic diva and trophy property collector Martha Stewart "covets" the 42-room Fifth Avenue spread of reclusive centenarian billion-heiress Huguette Clark.
As the children know, there has been quite a bit of brouhaha and ink spilled the last few months regarding the mysterious copper heiress Huguette Clark, her vast fortune estimated to be around half a billion bucks, and her three residences located in three of the country's ritziest zip codes. It's been reported that Miz Clark has not been inside her titanic apartment New York City at 907 Fifth Avenue at for more than 20 years, visited her vast estate overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Santa Barbara, CA since sometime in the 1960s and, despite having added an entire wing, never even stepped foot on the secluded New Canaan, CT estate she purchased during the 1950s as a kind of real estate security blanket in the event that the cold war got hot and she wanted to get out of New York City.
According to the National Enquirer's so-called "insider," Miz Stewart, who we hear from several sources already owns a smaller unit in the building with a kitchen that looks like a damn science lab, has "got the whole apartment redecorated in her mind. The deal seems to be all she can think about."
This "insider" also claims that Miz Stewart, a gal who makes other women (and gay men) feel totally and completely inadequate in their crafting and baking skills, is so intent on buying Huguette's 42-room beast on Fifth Avenue that she once sent a plate of her famous cream puffs up to Miz Clark's apartment as a kind of Trojan Horse. But alas, by that point Miz Clark had long been sequestered in a New York City hospital and the cream puffs were returned tout de suite by her staff.
Sometime after her cream puffs were rebuffed, according to this "insider," Miz Stewart went to the doorman of the undistinguished white glove building and "angrily demanded" that he tell her where Miz Clark was. But alas, the doorman did not know and once again Big Bad Martha, allegedly, was thwarted in her attempt to buy the epic-sized crib even before she really got started. Now chickens, please keep in mind that we don't know if these cream puff and doorman stories have a shred of veracity. However, iffin the stories were true it chills Your Mama to the core to ponder the icy resolve and quiet anger that we imagine would have slowly crept across Miz Stewart's face and into the marrow of her 68-year old bones. She is, after all and as we all know (or think we know), not used to not getting what she wants.
What's interesting about this report in the National Enquirer–which we are unable to find online–is that it does not include the most important detail regarding Huguette's 42-room "apartment." In actually Huguette's 42-room digs are two unconnected units on two different floors of the building. One is a full floor prairie like spread and the other a half-floor apartment where it has been reported Huguette keeps her extensive collection of dolls and dollhouses. Getting from one apartment to the other requires a short but inconvenient elevator ride.
A typical 14-room half floor apartment at 907 Fifth Avenue–as it was originally laid out (above)–would have included a 4-5 bedrooms, a 46-foot long entrance gallery, a 31-foot long living room with fireplace, formal dining room with fireplace, small library, and a kitchen with large butlers pantry. Live in staff would be accommodated in 3 cell-sized rooms that share just one pooper and a small servant's hall is where the live-ins would take their meals and quietly complain and gossip about the demands and proclivities of their wildly wealthy employers. According to the materials sent to Your Mama by one of The Children whom we'll call Hamilton Hasthefloorplan the fourteen room half floor units at 907 Fifth were first marketed with yearly lease prices of–are y'all sitting down?–$10,500.
Thanks to Hamilton Hasthefloorplan, Your Mama now has a seizure inducing floor plan for a 28-room full floor apartment at 907 Fifth Avenue that includes two 40-foot long drawing/living rooms, a 30-foot long library, dining room, colossal kitchen with pantry, six family bedrooms, and 5.5 poopers. The apartment's vast staff quarters include laundry facilities (with a drying porch), a maze of hallways, 9 punishingly small staff bedrooms that share 2 poopers, a small servant's hall, and a decent sized bedroom with private pooper for the housekeeper. The full floor apartments at 907 Fifth Avenue, according to marketing materials, were first offered with a yearly lease price of–sit down again and grab a nerve pill, puppies–$30,000. Lo-ward have mercy children that's a damn fraction of what Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter payed in annual rent for a much smaller 3 bedroom and 3 pooper downtown doo-plex.Listen chickens, Your Mama does not know a peg leg from pin cushion so we haven't any idea whether either of these floor plans reflects an accurate layout of either of Huguette Clark's Fifth Avenue apartment(s). What they do reflect is how the apartments were laid out early in the building's history. Let's be honest though, whether they represent the layout of Huguette's two apartments or not, they are fascinating and jaw dropping bits of floor plan porn to pour over while sipping on an early afternoon gin and tonic.
floor plan image (half floor): Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library
