10 fabulous rich men who chose to become hermits

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The idea of giving up wealth, fame and society for many seems, to put it mildly, wild. But for some people, life in the spotlight seems overwhelming. In fact, no one can tell why some people feel the need to distance themselves from society. Some are likely to be mentally ill, while others seem to enjoy staying home for years, even if they have so much money to do whatever they want.

1. Huguette Clark

Huguett Clarke was the daughter of a copper tycoon who inherited a fortune of over $ 300 million, but her life did not get better. Rather than surrounding herself with beautiful things, Clarke decided to spend the last 20 years of her life in a hospital room, despite not being ill. She practically did not let visitors to her place and did not have any personal belongings, except for personal clothes, dolls and her collection of violins (which, by the way, once included Stradivari's greatest masterpiece, known as "Theotokos"). Clark owned several homes, including a Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan and a mansion in California, but preferred the hospital's sterile ward.

The reason for the woman's seclusion is unknown, but she once called money "a threat to happiness." After her death in 2011, Huguette Clark left over $ 30 million to the nurse, but this was disputed by distant relatives who barely knew Huguette. Ultimately, the nurse received nothing (but was able to keep most of the $ 31 million gifts she received from Clark over the years).

2. Ida Wood

Ida Wood was a New York socialite at the very end of the 19th century, but in 1907 she suddenly moved away from high life and moved into a room at the Herald Square Hotel with her sister and daughter, "hiding" from everyone. Every day a messenger knocked on the door and asked if the sisters wanted anything. Ida Wood opened the door and asked for the same thing: condensed milk, crackers, coffee, bacon and eggs. Every day she gave him ten cents and said that this was all she had. The daughter died in 1928.

In 1931, Ida Wood, now over ninety, suddenly flung open the door and called for help. Her sister was dying. When employees entered the hotel room, they found that the bathroom had been converted into a makeshift kitchen, with empty cracker boxes and rotting food scattered throughout the room. Among the trash, they also found stock certificates, bonds and cash hidden in shoe boxes, as well as diamond necklaces in an empty box of crackers. Ida Wood even had $ 500,000 in $ 10,000 bills attached to her nightgown. All this seems incredible, but Ida Wood's life was a collection of incredible happenings. She met her husband after writing to him (essentially a stranger at the time), suggesting romance and "pleasant intimacy," and posing as the daughter of a wealthy and aristocratic family.

In fact, she was the daughter of poor Irish immigrants and made her fortune in a very unusual way. She agreed with her husband, who was a gambling addict, that every time he won, he would give half of the winnings to his wife, and if he lost, he would also pay her half of his losses. When he ran out of money, Ida gave her husband a loan in exchange for a share in his newspaper business. He died practically penniless, and she kept a fortune in empty cracker boxes.

3. Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson grew up in a wealthy family in Massachusetts (her father was a respected lawyer). The family was famous in social circles, but Emily never wanted to be a part of this world. After only a year of college, she left college and spent the rest of her life at her father's house, occasionally leaving home only to see a doctor. Dickinson never married, although she did have friends. It is believed that once she was in love, because the poems for which this poetess is famous are addressed to a certain mysterious lover, but no one knows who he could be. It is unclear why Dickinson chose this lifestyle for herself, but she died at her father's house in 1886 and was buried in the white clothes she always wore.

4. Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was certainly a genius. His pioneering electrical developments are still in use today. But he was never as famous as his rival Thomas Edison, mainly because Edison was very hungry for fame and did not hesitate to pass off other people's ideas as his own. Tesla, on the other hand, seemed to have little interest in fame or even money. While his inventions have brought in millions or even billions of dollars, he seems to have gained little value from them.

Tesla had an eidetic memory, he could speak eight languages and rarely took notes during the development of next projects (the inventor kept everything in memory), despite the fact that they would be useful in obtaining patents. Also Tesla was always a little eccentric and almost certainly suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The inventor washed his hands several dozen times a day and ate only boiled food. He had strange phobias, such as aversion to pearls, which caused him intense anxiety even when he was talking to a woman with a pearl necklace around his neck. Tesla believed that he owed his greatest ideas to loneliness, so he preferred to be alone. Poor business acumen led the genius to squander his fortune, and spent the last years moving from hotel to hotel and checking out when it came time to pay the bill.

One day he wanted to pay off with one of his inventions - a box, which, he said, contained a death ray so dangerous that it could not be opened. Tesla died in one of the hotel rooms in 1943, as usual, alone.

5. Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer is probably best described as a restless genius. The child prodigy became a national hero when he defeated the Soviet grandmaster at the height of the Cold War, becoming world chess champion in 1972; and a traitor when he defied US sanctions to play a rematch in Belgrade during the Balkan Wars 20 years later. But Fischer hardly cared about any labels or other people's opinions in general. He became paranoid, conspiracy-obsessed, and pissed off at the world.

Having beaten the best chess players in the world, he seemed to have lost the meaning of life. Bobby gave up playing chess, but he could not find anything else that might interest him. After making very harsh comments during interviews after 9/11 in the United States, he ended up in Iceland, where he spent the rest of his life as a hermit. He invented his own form of chess, which without undue modesty he called Fischerandom.

Although Fischer has looked like a real homeless person in recent years, he owned a multi-million dollar estate (though he didn't live in it, though). He was found dead in a hotel room in 2008. However, even after his death, Fischer "did not act like everyone else." According to the will, he was buried secretly, without informing the authorities.

6. Theo and Karl Albrecht

Theo Albrecht founded the ALDI grocery empire with his brother Karl after World War II. They started by running their mother's grocery store, which they turned into a business that made them multi-billionaires. Theo was kidnapped in 1971 and released after paying a ransom of seven million DM 17 days after his kidnapping. He may have been released earlier, but he appears to have bargained heavily over this amount and later tried to claim it as a business expense on his tax return.

After the abduction, both brothers behaved in a very restrained manner. They were rarely photographed and did not give interviews. They traveled separately in cars that never took the same route twice. The two brothers spent some of their time on a remote island in the North Sea, where they played golf, grew orchids and assembled typewriters. Both men died in Essen, Germany (Theo in 2010 and Karl in 2014).

7. John Wendel II

At the turn of the 20th century, John Wendel II had a real estate empire in midtown Manhattan that would be worth about $ 1 billion today. He built his fortune on four solid principles: never mortgage, never sell, never renovate, and always remember that property prices on Broadway will rise every ten blocks. Wendel had equally firm principles about his family. Their home was in a commercial area, surrounded by shops and hotels, and was therefore completely unusable as a private estate, but it was worth a fortune.

John didn't spend money on newfangled inventions like electricity, telephones, or cars. There was no fence around the house, and passers-by often looked through the windows to catch a glimpse of a strange family, which they called the "Strange Wendels." Wendel had seven sisters who lived in the house with him. John himself was called "the Fifth Avenue hermit."

8. Ella Wendel

After the death of John Wendel, the sisters continued to live in the house until only Ella Wendel remained. By the way, only one of the sisters got married - and then only after she could no longer bear children, because John Wendel believed that all the gentlemen of his sisters wanted exclusively to get his money. And this meant that there was simply no one to inherit a huge fortune.

Despite this, Ella Wendel continued to live the same way as before. Her fortune was estimated at $ 100 million, but she lived in a huge house alone, without modern conveniences. It seemed that her only pleasure over the years were the dogs, which she invariably called Toby. At night, Ella walked with Toby on a plot they owned and which, following her brother's business principles, she never sold, despite the fact that it was worth millions.

After Ella's death in 1931, more than 2,000 "relatives" (almost all of them were impostors) declared their share of the inheritance. Most of the property was spent on attorney fees, while the rest went to charity.

9. Eliza Donnithorn

Eliza Donnithorn is said to have inspired Charles Dickens to portray Miss Havisham, the abandoned bride who wandered hopelessly through the house in her wedding dress, awaiting the return of the groom. Donnithorn moved to Australia in the 1840s with her father, an East India Company official, and continued to live there after his death. In 1889, The Illustrated Sydney News published an article about the bride being thrown at the altar, leaving her "completely upset."

Eliza fell in love with a young man whom her father did not approve of, and despite all attempts to separate them, the couple set a wedding date. Mr. Donnithorn was such an important official that the wedding sparked a lot of interest, and crowds of people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the bride. Eliza Donnithorn, in her wedding dress, was excitedly waiting at the altar for her lover. But he was not there. Without waiting for the groom, Eliza never left the house after that. Her only interest was books, a huge collection of which remained after her death.

10. Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust was a renowned French writer and renowned hermit. The author of the book "In Search of Lost Time" before his death spent several years in an apartment on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. He rarely went outside. Proust suffered from severe asthma, which only worsened after the death of his parents. He soundproofed his workroom with cork panels and hung heavy curtains to keep out a single ray of daylight.

After that, he would not sleep for days, working non-stop on his masterpiece, desperately trying to complete it to death. Nevertheless, the unforgiving time overtook Proust, and the last three volumes (of eight) "In Search of Lost Time" were never completed. Proust died in 1922 in his apartment. Although he did not complete his seminal work in full, the latter volumes were complete enough to be published after his death, and the novel became one of the most important works of literature in the world.