Heir Mail #18/19, somewhere in there
The "For the 99.5% Act," a house even bigger than a boat, and more.
Hello! You’re reading HeirMail, the only newsletter to come from me (hi) setting a Google Alert for the word “heiress” and then just writing about whatever pops up.
Hi hi hi! First, some mansekeeping:
I’m officially moving this newsletter to an every-other-week schedule, now that it’s nice out and having a life feels possible. But about half the time I set an intention it turns out to not happen1 so probably don’t worry about it.
Speaking of, you might be like, “well, I didn’t see the words ‘Heir Mail’ in my inbox last week, bitch.” Only sort of true! In case you missed it, I sent the first episode the Heir Mail X Fingers collab podcast “Ain’t Nothin’ But a Family Thing.” In it, Dave Infante, proprietor of the aforementioned brilliant alcohol newsletter, and I talked about the Busch family and had a very good and I think delightful time doing so. Will there be more? Well!
Who could the next Ain’t Nothin’ But a Family Thing be about? | @its.fingers’ Instagram
Also, after a whole paragraph of repeating stuff from last week, one more: the story I wrote about the inherited wealth of non-famous, non-super-wealthy people for Vox’s The Highlight is now finally out in a format anyone can read.
Finally, about the actual manse, which is to say the platform for this newsletter, which is to say the Whole Substack Thing, I’m not going anywhere for right now2.
God, sorry, that was a lot of housekeeping! These enormous old estates are tough to keep up! And the taxes! Etc.
CTRL + F:
Abigail Disney gives me an excuse to talk about the estate tax, you’re WELCOME.
A house you’ll want to go In-N-Out of.
Goings-on in the Ecclezone
From the rest of the alert: the nana from Minari’s relevant filmography, Doris Duke redux, Anna Delvey Sorokin: artist/ muse, no half-assing for Nicky or her Hearst footwear partner, an awful avalanche, a horse, Seinfeld cameo.
“Disney heiress supports Sanders' estate tax hike,” Market Watch
We’ve never gone deep on Abigail Disney, but the grand-niece to Walt, grand-daughter to his co-founder brother Roy, is almost always in the news for something that undermines the hoarding of wealth. Her twitter bio reads “Lover of humankind, and noodge for social justice.” Beautiful class traitor! Rich ally! You know what we are simply forced to do!3
She’s out here this week testifying to Congress in support of Bernie Sanders “For the 99.5 Percent Act,” which seeks “to reinstate estate and generation-skipping taxes.” (Yeah, I read it.) Tax talk, baybee, don’t tune out yet!
There was a draft of my recent feature that involved a bunch more tax talk, and was more like an extended plea for people to get on board with estate and inheritance taxes. It was a little dull and preachy; that’s what editors are for! Along the way, though, Data for Progress did some polling for me on the estate tax, and oh my god, it is absolutely stupid unpopular. (The inheritance taxes polled even worse.)
God knows I barely understand a dollar, but TLDR the estate tax seems to be so hated because no one gets it. Everyone thinks it’s coming for them, as confirmed for me by economist Edward Wolff. It’s not!! And if it is, you can afford it.
Abigail’s #vanlife | @abigaildisney’s Instagram
As the name of Bernie’s bill implies, this bill would effect 0.5% of estates. The proposal starts at $3.5 million, and only 1/5 of inheritances (which only 1/5 of Americans even receive at all) are above $500,000. Abigail said it well to Congress: “It would not force the sale of family farms or break up small businesses. It would, on the other hand, go a long way toward preventing the accumulation of the kind of dynastic wealth that threatens democracy, governance, and human rights everywhere it is found.”
It would also boost revenues by $430 billion, according to Joint Committee on Taxes, and for a country where we can barely fund unemployment; it seems like there’s a place or two that money could be useful.
Anyways, back to Abigail, a gloss: She’s currently living in a van. She wrote her dissertation about “the role of romanticized violence and war in American life.” She’s part of a group called Patriotic Millionaires (they have the domain name taxtherich.com) with the heir to the Oscar Mayer fortune and a former BlackRock exec. She’s directed The Armor of Light, which follows a famous pro-life preacher — a man who helped pay off Norma McCorvey, aka Roe in Roe v Wade, to switch sides in the abortion debate — as he breaks with his political allies to wonder if loving guns is actually consistent with the rest of his philosophy. She produced The Assistant, the Harvey Weinstein-without-Harvey Weinstein movie, and the horny Oklahoma revival everyone loved!
If I had her money, I would not be as consistently aware as I think Abigail Disney seems to be. Sorry to gush!
Estimated net worth: Roughly $120 million, according to Wealthy Gorilla.
“In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Snyder seeks $16.8 million for Bradbury mansion,” L.A. Times
“Reclusive Billionaire In-N-Out Heiress Lynsi Snyder Selling $17M California Estate — See Inside,” People Magazine
“Come check out incredible mansion of In-N-Out heiress with own 2-hole golf course,” Sacramento Bee
There’s something funny about the phrase “2-hole golf course,” as per that last headline. Is it really a course at that point? I feel like you need at least three for a course; whoever talks about a two-course meal? This bit would kill in Orange Country.
Two holes! Talk about a miniature golf course! | CREDIT: IM REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY & DAVID GUETTLER PHOTOGRAPHY
In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Snyder bought the place — which is actually two houses plus a recreation center, all on four acres — in 2012 for $17.41 million from a baseball player, and is putting it up in 2021 for $16.8 million.
I spent some time trying to figure out how many of the big boat (which is 1,312 ft x 194 ft) could fit into the 18,000 square feet that make up the two homes. I considered getting out graph paper! I didn’t.
Some notes:
The movie theater at least actually looks like a movie theater, +12
Fully circular driveway, +2
Entrance hall devoid of color, - 5
Extremely wooden office, like, so much wood, +3
Indoor-outdoor kitchen and couches, +9
Bathtub in the center of the room, +30
General bathroom marble aesthetic, -12
This rug, -15, also this chandelier, -8
I know you can just change a rug but I hate it! | CREDIT: IM REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY & DAVID GUETTLER PHOTOGRAPHY
Am I bringing back heiress points? Maybe! I kind of miss giving stuff borderline rude numerical values.
On that same tip, some notes about Snyder’s husbands; she has had four:
To her, for having four husbands4, +10,000
#1: Jeremiah Seawell (+5 for name), her high school sweetheart (+10), married two years
#2: Richard Martinez, father of her two kids (+2), married six years
#3: Val Torres, Jr. (+1), “riddled with cheating and abuse” (0 points, obviously, god, I just remembered what’s wrong with points)
#4: Sean Ellingson, a former In-N-Out employee (+15), very religious, just like Lynsi
Estimated net worth: People says “In 2017, Forbes estimated Snyder's net worth to be $1.3 billion.”
The Ecclezone (TM)
“Tamara Ecclestone looks every inch the doting mama as she cuddles daughters Sophia, 7, and Serena, 6 months, in sweet snap,” Daily Mail
“Bernie Ecclestone's daughter swipes at Harry and Meghan 'All they've done is interviews!’” Express
Tamara Ecclestone Rutland continues to live inside of a perpetual gauzy cuddlepile with her daughters and husband. I will say, her family ‘grams are slightly less zapped of mom stress than some influencers, which I don’t hate! Don’t get me wrong, still very glamorous, still in Dubai, but there’s something human around the edges.
Also I like this crop I made of her younger daughter Serena gazing at a Black Tap Dubai milkshake.
“This is excessive and I want it.” — this baby, me. | @JayRutland’s Instagram
This week her less-covered sister Petra Ecclestone is hitting some amazing high notes of rich British person tone-deafness.
First, she’s been traveling amid the virus, taking her four kids from “London to Croatia to LA, then Switzerland, Monaco and France, then back to LA and Monaco, then The Maldives and back to Monaco since March last year.” (The Daily Mail made a map, bless that horrible rag.)
She says “others would if they could.” I do like to think I still wouldn’t have gotten on at least nine planes, by my count, in this last year, even private ones, because there were plenty of months when that seemed deranged, but I don’t have to make those tough choices.
She told T2: “We’re currently in Monaco. For now. Not sure where we’ll be next week… We’re very Covid-conscious. We’ve flown completely around the world to try and miss it. What I think we’ve realised now is you can’t run from coronavirus.” You can’t run from coronavirus, but also you can’t stop running from coronavirus.
Still, along the way their nanny-housekeeper caught the virus, leaving them to do parenting themselves. As I’m doling out credit today, I will note that Petra doesn’t share pictures of her kids, which I do respect. That way assholes can’t screenshot your baby and be like, “it me.” For example!
The intent is solid, the execution’s a little eerie. |@sampalmerofficial’s IG
Petra also has a newish podcast (who doesn’t, right?) called P.S Say Cheese with her husband Sam Palmer. Sam runs a staffing agency for rich people, which he started when they lived in Aaron Spelling’s old house and he realized how hard it was to find good help, I guess. I listened to a few minutes of the ‘cast — Petra’s never listened to one before, and they’re not big fans of the genre.
Then!
Petra says she’s always stood up for Meghan Markle [footage not found], but now says of her and Harry: “they said they wanted privacy and they didn't want to be famous and they didn't want to do interviews — but all they've done since is basically do interviews.” It’s a hard needle to thread, I suppose, like blocking out your kids faces on Insta and then hosting a podcast that invokes them its description format.
Estimated net worth:
$300 million for Tamara, according to Next Alerts, still largely from her dad Bernie having basically invented fancy car racing in Europe.
$400 million for Petra, as per Wealthy Gorilla.
From the rest of the Alert
For your to watch list: Youn Yuh-jung, currently nominated for best supporting actress for Minari, once played “a cruel and rich heiress betrayed by her husband in Im [Sang-soo]'s 2012 thriller "Taste of Money.” It’s streaming on Amazon.
The Daily Mail Daily Mailifies Doris Duke, who lived on tobacco money and murdered her interior designer so he couldn’t leave her for Hollywood. We’ve talked about her before and there’s nothing new but god, it’s a tale. The article is based on the new book Homicide at Rough Point, by Newport, Rhode Island journalist Peter Lance, and they quote him as writing, “She was notoriously paranoid, stingy, hyper-jealous in her rages, incredibly troubled, driven by booze and barbiturates.” Damn if the money doesn’t make all that horrible human misery sound glamorous!
Financially fake, spiritually real heiress Anna Delvey is being called Anna Sorokin in headlines more and more; she did art and someone did art about her. Honestly don’t trust this man seeking to profit off of her! Taylor Swift’s National man is involved.
Nicky Hilton Rothschild and Amanda Hearst Rønning are making sustainable footwear, with Nicky saying, “I know that the word sustainable has become such a buzzword, and I made it very clear to French Sole that the shoes were to be 100 percent sustainable, not partially.” I can’t speak to their factory practices but they’re like, $150-165 flats and sneakers which is maybe not an accessible price point, but not a confusing or, I’d say, enraging one.
Having a normal one that it feels unusual to report on an heiress death that doesn’t come at the hands of her male romantic partner. A terrible story though: Julie Pomagalski, whose grandfather created the kind of ski-lift where you put a little disc between your feat and who was an Olympic athlete and won the world championship in snowboard cross in 1999, was buried by an avalanche in the Swiss Alps. She was 40.
A horse named American Heiress.
27-year-old real estate heiress Danielle Naftali talked to BI about how she’s moving $35 million penthouses during the pandemic with the semi-witting help of Jerry Seinfeld (and at only 27, as they stress). There are glamour shots. I do like that floral dress a lot! Good dress!
Real heads remember when there was going to be a giant corkboard of heiresses and their power rankings on index cards, but that got derailed by how frequently I end up writing about murders.
It’s complicated and I feel complicated! Setting aside for a second that they’re still the platform of Graham Linehan actively doxxing trans women (a good summary of that here), I generally have a deep distrust and antipathy for platforms doing publisher shit and then acting like “whatttt, me, editorial??” Once I got a (frankly terrible) haircut on a Facebook Live, and later I lost two-thirds of my coworkers at Racked, and these things are inextricably linked!
But also, there was a moment when I almost moved this thing to Medium so determining next steps has eluded me. As I am a barnacle on this wretched ship, making money for no one, I will float along until a clear resolution presents itself, or we all go down.
Abigail Disney fans are called Disney Princesses, and yes, it is confusing.
The thing I regret most in life is that I didn’t start getting married young (or at all), so I guess I’m going to have to work really hard to get multiple divorces under my belt. Reply if you’re vaccinated and want to do a quickie first marriage; serious inquiries only.
4. If you're still need that 1st quickie marriage, I have some time haha