In a video tour of the Bellosguardo esate, Andrew McVinish, head of private and iconic collections Christie’s New York, stands in the music room and calls the property a “virtual time capsule.” 
The Clark family estate at 1407 E. Cabrillo Blvd. has sat empty for decades. 
The Bellosguardo Foundation is holding a fundraising event at the Santa Barbara estate in October. 
The Bellosguardo Foundation is holding a fundraising event at the Santa Barbara estate in October.
The Bellosguardo Foundation is organizing an October fundraising event at the enigmatic Clark estate on the Santa Barbara waterfront, which has officially passed into the hands of the nonprofit foundation.
Event Committee members are “busy creating an elegant, Gatsbyesque soiree, showcasing both the estate’s history and its potential,” the foundation website says.
“This event will raise much needed funds so that we may continue to maintain the house, grounds and collections, as we move forward with our larger vision and open the property to the public.”
Ticket prices on the foundation website range from $50,000 (for 20 guests in a private living room, with butler service) to $1,500 for two guests.
Individual tickets will be sold “pending availability,” the site says.
Board chairman Dick Wolf and members Josh Conviser and Sandi Nicholson are organizing the event, to be held from 6 to 10 p.m. on Oct. 13.
Bellosguardo, at 1407 E. Cabrillo Blvd., is a 24-acre oceanfront estate that was built in the 1930s for Anna Clark, the wife of industrialist and Montana senator William A. Clark, who made his money from mining, banks and railroads.
Anna Clark and her daughter, Huguette, spent many summers at the estate until about 1953. Since then, the estate has sat empty, but ready for visitors at short notice.
When Huguette Clark died in 2011 at age 104 with a $300 million fortune, her will was contested in court. The settlement created a New York-based foundation to foster the arts, and gifted the Bellosguardo estate to the foundation.
The estate was in limbo for several years while probate and tax issues were settled, but officially transferred to the foundation in March.
Bellosguardo has an assessed value of $49.7 million as of 2017, according to the Santa Barbara County Assessor’s Office. The 21,666-square-foot mansion, built in 1936, has nine bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and 13 fireplaces.
In a video tour of the Bellosguardo estate, Andrew McVinish, head of private and iconic collections at Christie’s New York, calls the property a “virtual time capsule.”
The interior of the house — shown with uncovered art and furniture in the video — has been mostly untouched for decades, everything in the same place as when Huguette Clark last visited, he said.
“Walking through the house, it’s like stepping back to a time when Eisenhower was president of the United States,” he said.
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
