NEW YORK – The Upper East Side properties owned by the late heiress Huguette Clark hit the market early this month and her Filipina nurse will receive the bulk of the sale.
Edwin Josue, a Filipino real estate broker of Halstead properties, explained that 62-year-old Filipina nurse Hadassah Peri will benefit the most from the sale of Clark’s properties.The New York Times reported that based on Clark’s second will, Peri will receive 60 percent of the multimillionaire’s various assets, worth about $40 million, including investments and much of her real estate holdings not specifically bequeathed in the will.The three separate apartments located in Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue are now listed on the market for a total of $55 million.“907 Fifth Avenue was built in 1915 and designed by JR Carpenter. It was awarded gold medal in 1916 by American Institute of Architects, it’s got a limestone facade and it was designed in an Italian Palazzio apartment house,” Josue said.The three apartments, each about 5,000 square feet, take up a floor-and-a-half of the exclusive co-op building.Clark owns the whole 8th floor which is divided into two separate apartment units. The one facing Central Park is listed at $19 million. The other is at $12 million.The largest of the 3, apartment 12-W, located on the 12th floor facing Central Park, has 14 rooms.“Huguette Clark lived here in the 20’s, so after that you know it stayed empty but they were able to maintain it properly, so it is in fair and original condition. Huguette Clark actually stayed most of her last years at Beth Israel Medical Center with the famous Hadassah Peri, who is also our kababayan,” Josue said.Clark divorced young and had no children. She had been a recluse for most of her life. Her second will that named Peri as one of her beneficiaries is still being contested by her relatives at this time.The New York Times reported that a first will, drafted six weeks prior to the second, would have left most of Clark’s estate to her relatives.But the second leaves the bulk of the fortune to a foundation and the rest to Peri, completely leaving out her family.Even though the will is being contested, the public administrator has put the apartments up for sale.But Josue said, buying these properties on Upper East Side, home to celebrities like Madonna and Donald Trump, is not going to be that easy.“Although it’s a cooperative, these people will really interview you and have all the references and the cash, the building is actually allowing 33% financing and you need to have 67% of cash and be interviewed by the board,” Josue said.Peri came to the US in 1971 after graduating nursing school in the Philippines.She became Huguette Clark’s nurse in 1991 through a nursing agency and took care of the heiress for 20 years.“They became friends as a matter of fact, and that’s the reason why Huguette Clark has the affinity with her because during the time of her going to her old age she’s got a friend in Hadassah Peri,” Josue said.In an email to Balitang America, Hadassah Peri’s representative, Fraser Seitel said that the case is still going through the judicial process, so all is status quo with Ms. Peri.She is living her life as the court proceeds.
via abs-cbnnews.com