But by the early 2000s, the Wethersfield fortune began to fade. The foundation’s expenses and grant outlays exceeded revenues for 14 straight years, filings show. Trustees diverted millions of dollars to personal causes, including alma maters and children’s schools, according to admissions they made in connection with Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s probe.
Legal Settlement
Homeland’s assets totaled $103 million in 1998. By April 2015, they’d dwindled to $31 million. That year, Schneiderman alleged that former trustees used the foundation as “a piggy bank” and that its ex-president misdirected $701,328 for personal benefit. In an agreement with Schneiderman’s office, seven former trustees admitted they routinely awarded money to “institutions that had nothing to do with the Wethersfield Estate.”
The former trustees agreed to compensate the foundation $4.4 million. Thanks to that payment, Homeland’s revenue finally exceeded expenses in the latest tax return.
There is now a new board in place that includes family members. The new trustees “had to make some difficult choices to right the ship,” said Tara Shafer, Chauncey Stillman’s granddaughter who joined the board in 2016.
To help raise an infusion of $20 million, the board obtained court permission in December to sell five paintings and nearby farmland. In February, Homeland Foundation changed its name of almost 80 years to Wethersfield Foundation to underscore its mission.
The new entity has consigned 16 artworks, including those by Edgar Degas and John Singer Sargent, to Christie’s. The group is expected to raise more than $12 million at auctions starting this month.
Old Master works, including Nicolas Lancret’s “Autumn,” will be offered on April 27 in New York. A painting of a boy with a dog by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, valued at $1.5 million to $2.5 million, will be in the evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on May 15.
“I am very sad about it because I know how much these paintings meant to my father,” said Theodora S. Budnik, a daughter of Chauncey Stillman. “But the survival of Wethersfield is more important.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.