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Will of Mrs. Astor, Now 105, Gives Millions
to Family and to Charity

NY TIMES
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
June 24, 2007

Her son, Anthony, gets the bulk of her vast and storied fortune, from artwork by the Italian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo to the cash from the eventual sale of her Park Avenue duplex and her 65-acre Westchester estate.
Her daughter-in-law Charlene receives two fur coats — a mink and a chinchilla — and a necklace adorned with 367 round diamonds, while her twin grandsons are to be given $1 million each.
Then there are the New York City public school teachers — who have yet to be selected — who will benefit from a $2 million endowment allowing them to make trips abroad. Even an azalea garden on the Maine coast is down for $100,000.
These are some of the particulars of the last will and testament of Brooke Astor, New York’s doyenne of philanthropy and high society who turned 105 in March. For much of last year, the document — whose details have been unknown until now to all but a few — was at the dark center of a legal battle among family members over Mrs. Astor’s care and finances.
A close review of the will and three amendments to it reveals who is designated to get what from Mrs. Astor’s personal fortune, valued at about $130 million, and a trust estimated to be worth more than $60 million that was left for her by her late husband, Vincent Astor. The specifics of the will have taken on added significance in recent weeks, according to Mrs. Astor’s family and friends, because her frail condition has started what could be a final decline. And the will is compelling for another reason: In many ways it is a paper-and-ink personification of Mrs. Astor, even though questions persist about the will’s amendments, and Mrs. Astor’s mental competency going back many years.
The will, which Mrs. Astor signed on Jan. 30, 2002, reflects her love of New York City, her own particular brand of charity and even her devotion to people and her joie de vivre. It specifies, for example, that she be buried next to her late husband and that the words on her gravestone declare, “I had a wonderful life.”
Some New York institutions will receive millions of dollars, most notably the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, organizations Mrs. Astor has been closely affiliated with for decades. But they stood to receive millions more before certain changes were made to her will in 2003.
Part of Mrs. Astor’s will reads like a who’s who of New York society. David Rockefeller receives her stone Buddha head sculpture. Annette de la Renta, wife of the designer Oscar de la Renta, who has been one of her court-appointed guardians for nearly a year, gets four of her dog paintings. Laurance S. Rockefeller, who died in 2004, was to get her head of Hypnos. Her son, Anthony D. Marshall, 83, will also receive whatever is left of the estate after all bequests have been paid.
But whether the current incarnation of Mrs. Astor’s will is executed in its entirety after her death remains to be seen. Her court-appointed lawyer and others have questioned whether Mrs. Astor was mentally competent to understand the amendments, which were made in late 2003 and early 2004 and cumulatively redirected millions of dollars to Anthony Marshall, and put millions more to a charitable trust under his control.
A handwriting expert concluded that her signature had been forged on the third amendment. With so many questions swirling about, the charities whose share of the will was reduced as a result of the first amendment could pose legal challenges.
The will and the amendments, known as codicils, are under seal at the Westchester County Surrogate’s Court. Copies were provided to The New York Times by a party who has been involved in the Astor case. Given the state of Mrs. Astor’s health, no further changes could be made to her will, according to parties involved in her case.
In the way Mrs. Astor’s will is written, it is clear that she never envisioned her family being torn apart by disputes over her wealth and well-being. She expresses hope that after her death, one of her grandsons in particular, Philip Marshall, “will keep visiting his father,” Anthony, at the estate in Maine that she ended up giving to her son in 2003 and that Anthony “will leave him an interest” in the property upon his death.
But it was Philip Marshall, 54, who accused his father of neglecting the care of Mrs. Astor while enriching himself in his role as steward of her finances. A judge found claims of elder abuse unsubstantiated, but his decision came two months after Anthony and Charlene Marshall, under a settlement, ceded their positions as co-executors of Mrs. Astor’s estate. Under that agreement, any future legal action relating to Mr. Marshall’s handling of his mother’s finances are to be dealt with in Surrogate’s Court upon Mrs. Astor’s death and left to the discretion of an executor.
In her will, Mrs. Astor also distributes the trust left to her by her late husband. She leaves $2 million of it to New York University to establish an endowment fund for an Astor Fellows program to provide foreign travel for “outstanding” New York City public school teachers.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said, “It is an amazing testament to Brooke Astor and New York City teachers that she would be this thoughtful in recognizing the teaching profession and great educators.”
Mrs. Astor gives out roughly 50 percent of the trust to various nonprofit organizations, including the library and the Metropolitan Museum. The public library gets, among other things, 8 percent of the trust to create and maintain a special room to house some of her books.
“Mrs. Astor has been among the most important benefactors in the history of the New York Public Library, both in terms of financial support and personal commitment,” said the library’s president, Paul LeClerc. “She made it clear that her generosity would continue through her estate.” But, he added, “We have no direct knowledge about the contents of her will and it would be inappropriate for us to comment on it at this time.”
Under the unamended 2002 will, organizations like the library, the Metropolitan Museum and the New York Zoological Society each received significantly larger percentages of the trust. But the first codicil to Mrs. Astor’s will directed that about 49 percent of the trust be transferred instead to a charitable trust, the Anthony Marshall Fund, used just for her son’s philanthropic giving.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company