The historic former Marks Estate is losing its steward and two 90-something sisters who call the stately Nuuanu property home, after a tangled financial affair that involves what the property owner claims is a $40 million masterwork painting that he can’t sell to save his beloved estate.
“I just wish someone would call me and say, ‘Hey, I want to buy your painting,’ and this bad dream would go away,” lamented Douglas Himmelfarb. “Don’t you know any billionaires?”
Himmelfarb, an art collector, is the owner being evicted from the 85-year-old estate through foreclosure and also is being forced to sell much of his art and furniture collection at a bankruptcy auction on the property Saturday.
The painting, according to Himmelfarb, was made by Mark Rothko, an American abstract expressionist who took his own life in 1970 and is most known for depicting big colorful rectangles with rough or blurred edges.
Rothko’s work is prized by collectors, one of whom paid a record $87 million for one of the artist’s paintings in 2012.
Authenticating Himmelfarb’s painting, however, has been mired in what the collector said is an effort by high-end art world gatekeepers to stymie his quest because of a spat he said he had with the world’s foremost Rothko expert nearly a decade ago.
“People have conspired to kill this painting,” he said. “It’s painful. I could have saved my estate.”
ENCHANTED ESTATE, INTRIGUING OWNERS
Himmelfarb, who calls the estate at 3860 Old Pali Road “enchanted,” is the latest in a string of unusual owners who have struggled with keeping hold of the property also known as Kaha‘aina, roughly translated as “feast of the land.”
Kaha‘aina, which today covers 5 acres, features a 24-room main house built in 1932. It also includes a carriage house and a gatehouse. A pool with a pavilionlike bathhouse is separated from the main house by a stream.
Clarence Hyde Cooke established the estate on 17 acres with a mansion designed by architect Hardie Phillip, whose work includes the Honolulu Academy of Arts, now the Honolulu Museum of Art.
Cooke was the grandson of Amos Starr Cooke, the missionary co-founder of Hawaii Big Five company Castle & Cooke.
Upon Clarence Cooke’s death in 1944, the estate passed to the Academy of Arts, an institution founded by Clarence Cooke’s mother, Anna Rice Cooke.
The academy sold the property to Territorial Land Commissioner Lester Marks a year later. Marks lost ownership in 1956 when the territorial government acquired the estate because its plan for Pali Highway ran through undeveloped portions of the property.
The state used the mansion as a think tank headquarters and in 2002 sold it at auction to the nonprofit labor organization Unity House for $2.5 million. Unity House lost the estate in 2004 as part of a tax fraud and conspiracy case against its president, Tony Rutledge.
Himmelfarb, caretaker of two sisters from the affluent Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air, bought it in 2006 for $4.4 million.
NEW OWNER, NEW TROUBLES
Himmelfarb said he intended to restore the estate, establish a botanical garden focused on exotic gardenia species and share the property with the public.
“It wasn’t about making money for me,” he said. “I never intended to restore it and flip it. I wanted to restore it and share it. To me Kaha‘aina is priceless.”
Himmelfarb said he spent $2 million fixing up the estate.
Restoration work, however, was interrupted by an illness of one of the sisters and the economic downturn, according to Himmelfarb.
The sisters, Ruth and Ella Hirshfield, befriended Himmelfarb in the 1980s after crossing art-hunting paths in a Santa Monica, Calif., thrift shop. The sisters later made Himmelfarb their caretaker and heir, and entrusted him with improving and renting out commercial buildings they owned in Malibu and establishing a botanical garden at their Bel Air home.
Ruth Hirshfield, 96, calls Himmelfarb a “close family friend” who at times can be like a father, a son or a brother.
Several years ago Ella Hirshfield, who is now 94, had health problems that Himmelfarb said required his close attention at the same time the economy was crashing and drying up income from the Malibu real estate.
Soon, Himmelfarb couldn’t afford mortgages he obtained to rehab the California real estate, and he said he ended up losing the rental properties and the Bel Air house to lenders.
He also fell behind on payments to JPMorgan Chase Bank, the first mortgage holder on Kaha‘aina. Chase held a heavily marketed foreclosure auction in 2012 to sell the property, but no one offered to pay more than the $6.5 million mortgage debt held by the bank.
The Rothko, or Rothko-like, painting appears to be Himmelfarb’s last hope to pay off the mortgage and keep Kaha‘aina. Yet the art collector knows that will not be easy.
REAL ROTHKO?
Himmelfarb said he began trying to authenticate the painting identified as “Ex. No. 7” shortly after he bought it for $320 in 1987 at a small auction.
A snag emerged in 1998 when the premier Rothko expert, David Anfam of London-based Art Exploration Consultancy Ltd., published a catalog listing the artist’s entire output of paintings on canvas.
Himmelfarb expected his painting would be in the catalog after meeting and showing the work to Anfam and learning from Anfam that a photographic negative of the painting was in Rothko’s private files.
Himmelfarb suspected that a conversation he had with Anfam in which he said he called the expert a (expletive) imbecile prompted Anfam to exclude “Ex. No. 7” from the catalog.
Anfam could not be reached for comment.
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AUCTION INFO
» What: Oahu Auctions is selling personal items of art collector Douglas Himmelfarb.
» When: Saturday at 10 a.m., preview starts at 9 a.m.
» Where: The former Marks Estate in Nuuanu, 3860 Old Pali Road
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With foreclosure pressure mounting from Chase, Himmelfarb filed for bankruptcy early last year. The move prevented Chase from repossessing the estate and bought Himmelfarb time to authenticate the painting.
Himmelfarb obtained a subpoena, and the manager of Rothko’s estate was compelled to produce a black-and-white photographic negative that looks like Himmelfarb’s painting.
The negative, however, came with a legal disclaimer in part stating that the negative “is not an indication that those materials originated from the artist or his family.” The disclaimer went on to caution against “drawing any undue inference of authenticity” based on the Rothko estate manager possessing the negative.
Christopher Muzzi, a local bankruptcy attorney representing Himmelfarb, said that trying to determine the value of what Himmelfarb listed as a $40 million asset has been frustrating given what he calls art world politics.
“The art world seems to be an invitation-only world, and Doug (Himmelfarb) hasn’t received an invitation,” Muzzi said.
The auction Saturday by Oahu Auctions includes appliances, furniture, some art and other personal items but not the controversial painting. Himmelfarb valued his household furnishings at $322,300 and his collectibles minus “Ex. No. 7” at $1.7 million. About half of Himmelfarb’s possessions are being offered for sale Saturday.
Proceeds from the auction will help Himmelfarb pay for bankruptcy case expenses.
At this point Himmelfarb is resigned to losing Kaha‘aina. In September he agreed to vacate the estate by Sunday.
Himmelfarb and the Hirshfield sisters have been living part time in Bel Air and will relocate there.
Ruth Hirshfield said she and her sister worry about losing Kaha‘aina. “We are very comfortable here,” she said. “We try to adjust as well as we can.”
Though preparing to leave Kaha‘aina has been what Himmelfarb called an emotionally raw period for the trio, he maintains hope that he will one day be able to sell “Ex. No. 7” for a price befitting Rothko and perhaps buy back the Nuuanu property and resume his restoration plan.
“I’m the right person for Kaha‘aina,” he said. “Kaha‘aina was very special to me.”
