“She thought the world of Tom Hunt,” she says. Without that transformation, he might not have had the courage later in life to follow his convictions. In the complaint filed in state district court, Al III accused Tom of hiding Hunt Petroleum’s true value from the trusts’ beneficiaries, of conspiring with the family to cheat the tax man, and of raiding the trusts to finance other family deals. “She likes to look nice, and I want her to look nice. Al Jr. used an old picture instead so all his grandchildren would be together. Now, with one member suing the others, things are about to get very public and very ugly. A section of the house was smashed in, the wooden siding dangling. Al III asked the court to stop his father and aunts from selling Hunt Petroleum and partitioning the trusts, citing H.L.’s provision that the trusts remain intact until 21 years after Margaret’s and Hassie’s deaths. The Texas mansion that was named after George Washington’s Mount Vernon home and the long-time residence of the family that invented the Super Bowl, cornered the world's silver market, … Other marquee entities include the Kansas City Chiefs, FC Dallas … “I was there for him and he was there for me,” Al III says. This signature, delivered in 2007, was in blue. In the first 10 months of 2007, the couple spent $188,821 on household staff, including a British butler that some relatives took to calling the “manny.” About $461,000 went to clothes (twice as much as the previous year), and $503,000 went to vacations. “Al, I know you know the truth,” she said. Did this man know what he was doing when he disclaimed his interest in the trust? But it boiled over and into the public record on November 8, 2007. “She is stunning. The Hunt family is one of the richest and most private families in Dallas. On June 21, a little before 2 am, a woman called 911 from Al Jr.’s Lakeside Drive mansion. He considered a career as a minister but started an environmental water treatment business instead. If this property and all its amenities appeal to your oil-baron aesthetics, you better be as rich as JR Ewing, because the asking price is a cool $19 million. In Brewer’s view, he knew very well what he was doing. All told, the Hunt family fortune— which Forbes named the 16th-largest in America in 2016 —is spread among dozens of people, though Lamar’s siblings Ray Lee Hunt, who runs … Later in court, facing a charge of assault causing reckless injury and a maximum of one year in jail, Al Jr. said that the woman’s injuries, if any, were caused by her own negligence. He dated a string of starlets, including a Bond girl and Audrey Landers, from the TV series Dallas. “I know, Mom,” he said quietly. After a lot of soul searching, Al III, the oil heir, switched his major to environmental science and moved to Austin. One of the world’s richest men, renowned for acquiring the world’s largest oil field, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt made his fortune making oil deals, and even went on to own the Super Bowl. “The trusts have become so intertwined and commingled. “Mom, you know better than that!” he said. “She is making everything up, and nothing is wrong with her,” he said. Since Al Jr. had already signed over most of his claim to Margaret’s fortune to his own three children after his fall, that would mean Al III could expect to receive about $5.5 million a year in interest income on the proceeds of the sale. Today Al Jr. will say only: “There was an unfortunate accident. The dispatcher called back, and Al Jr. answered. Mother and son had been close, before he married the beauty queen. But she had read the lawsuit. Al Jr. called for help, but no one came. The areas of activity of the different Hunt … The H.L. This year they raised more than $4.75 million. Al III’s aunt Alinda Wikert had indicated she may be open to a major change. For $1.335 million, he purchased the East Texas Oil Field and, nearly overnight, became one of the wealthiest men on the planet. once pulled his teenage nephew off a roughneck crew and sent him to negotiate the sale of his house. “The beauty pageant gold digger shows up, small-town girl comes to the big city. She pushed him off and called 911. “This is just another business deal. “Have you read the Texas trust code?” he told his sisters. During her first marriage and through … I think it’s time for us to separate like the generation before us.”. But now Al Jr.’s lawyer, Mike Lynn, is fighting to get Brewer disqualified from the case on the grounds that Brewer allegedly prepared a lawsuit against his own client. Al Jr. was rushed to the hospital. The Hunt family is one of the richest and most private families in Dallas. All we know for now is that a family accustomed to keeping its affairs private-in business and everything else-is being forced to reveal its secrets. Join Facebook to connect with Dallas Hunt and others you may know. Hunt … It was late. Doctors told his children he would never walk again. Many of Al III’s closest relatives say his actions are completely out of character. He spent less than a week at Betty Ford. “We all have heard the alarming news of the melting ice caps and rising waters and the imminent threat to the extinction of polar bears and penguins,” she wrote. The empire H.L. Hunt Family mansion, located on 10 acres surrounding beautiful White Rock Lake, is a monument to the kind of wealth portrayed by the character JR Ewing in the blockbuster 80s soap opera “Dallas”. “I was so proud.” In 2005, Al Jr. hired his son for $10,000 a week to serve as his investment consultant and family representative. That was also the year that Al Jr. signed away most of his share of his mother’s trust fund, prematurely making Al III and his sisters heirs to Margaret Hunt Hill’s billions. The aging patriarch of the Hunt dynasty marked the start of a new generation of his family by going floor to floor at his firm’s offices, distributing fliers announcing Al III’s birth. “Mom, I’ve been disinherited by my father,” he said, his lip quivering with emotion. Trending Now. They’ve got the planes, the houses, the ski trips. Al III hired Brewer to represent him in another lawsuit over a trust fund, this one against the daughter of Benjamin Coates, a shipping and real estate magnate and longtime Hill family friend. The lawsuit was prepared by high-flying Dallas attorney Bill Brewer, of Bickel & Brewer. Gretel C. Kovach is a contributing editor to D Magazine. The Rosewood Corporation is wholly-owned by the Caroline Hunt Trust Estate, which was established in 1935 by legendary oil man H.L. Instead of trying to get my lawyer removed, playing these games, let’s adjudicate this. If your idea of fun doesn’t involve exercise, check out the game room, complete with old-style pinball and electronic games, or play a game of pool in the second living room. Brewer, meanwhile, claims to have a smoking gun. He tried to stanch the flow of cash but couldn’t change his son’s spending habits. Prior to her first marriage, Hunt worked in her father's Dallas office. Margaret Hunt Hill died on June 14, 2007. That wasn’t possible, he was told. As a student, he was a member of the Phi Delta … Some of his relatives have been whispering that Al III was fired as chairman of the Thanks-Giving Square foundation. When Tom’s staff saw that the lawsuit hadn’t sent him into a funk, they ordered him two neckties, each with a large spider crawling in a web. “What do you expect? Now, with one member suing the others, things are about to get very public and very ugly. He says he stumbled and fell forward, tumbling over a waist-high ledge. She could see that he wasn’t in it for the money. “Sit down,” the officers said, again and again. According to a flowchart presented at the gathering, which would later become Exhibit Three for Al III’s lawsuit, if Hunt Petroleum were sold off, Margaret’s share could be divided into three new trusts for her children. Write to [email protected]. But last summer Al Jr. walked across his tennis court using only canes. Al III and his two younger sisters moved from their father’s historic mansion on Lakeside Drive in Highland Park to slightly less tony University Park with their mother, who remained single for years while she raised the children. “I didn’t do anything,” a man said in the background. It’s a tragic father and son riff, and it’s going to go away.”, Her sister Alinda Wikert says, “Tom Hunt has worked tirelessly, fairly, and honestly for our family for over 60 years and has never shown favoritism.”, Elisa Hill Summers, Al III’s sister, adds, “I love my brother very much. Instead, they blame the beauty queen. But you can be sincere-and still be wrong. Then one early morning, at the wheel of his girlfriend’s Toyota Supra, with a friend in the passenger seat, he had the accident that would change his life. “They intended that the assets in the trusts be managed by a trustee and an advisory board, not by beneficiaries and certainly not by persons who only claim to be beneficiaries.” (Haynes & Boone, which normally represents D Magazine, did not review this story.). Or, head over to the indoor professional-style bowling center – an outrageously expensive gift from the iconic Neiman Marcus himself. But Al III flew in for the day this time and left after the family meeting. All photos are used with permission from TopTenRealEstateDeals.com. Al III said his children would not pose in his father’s annual Christmas card photo. But it would take more than that to scare Al Jr. sober. Even self-dealing isn’t always illegal, if the end result was fair and benefited the beneficiary, included full disclosure and didn’t line the pockets of the trustee. Al III, her eldest child, was always such a kind and gentle boy, always trying to please. Tom is the glue,” says Lyda Hill, one of H.L.’s granddaughters. If there is a luxury you can think of, this sprawling masterpiece already has it. The primary bedroom features an elegant wood four-poster bed, and a brightly-colored area rug complements the hardwood floor. His blood pressure is still a smooth 105 over 65, his pulse in the 50s-to his doctor’s astonishment, given the stress. A man inside ran out the back as Al III came through the front. A rift in the family business years back sent Buddy off in his own … “I didn’t have the heart,” he says. When their eldest son was born, Margaret said, “Of course he has to be Al IV.” Then came baby Nance and Caroline. The woman met police at Al Jr.’s door, crying. In recent years, the couple has been burning through an impressive amount of cash, according to documents provided by Al Jr., who loaned his son the money or guaranteed his line of credit. At the towing yard, the wrecker looked at the Supra with the hood rolled up into the front seat like a sardine tin and asked, “How many people died?” In the back seat there was a 2 by 4 split in half. Happily remarried, Al III’s mother, unlike the hundreds of Hunt family heirs, their spouses and lawyers, has nothing to gain from this court battle. The lawsuit is “the saddest, most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard of.”, But she didn’t want to scold that day. But in 2002, while drinking, Al Jr. had an indisputable problem. He turned his head side to side to clear the dirt so he could breathe. Al Jr. wanted to go downstairs to see the woman “and help you guys with this.”. But the blue eyes behind his spectacles are as sharp as his memory. Tom told Al III that his naïve attitude toward tax matters could cost the family $400 to $500 million in additional taxes, penalties, and interest. Four days later, his father and aunts fired him from Hill Development. might well have been the richest man in the country, at least as wealthy as J. Paul Getty, Howard Hughes, and the Rockefellers. “Touching me was uncalled for. “I know.”. In 1930, H.L., née Haroldson Lafayette, Hunt took a gamble. The property is perfect for welcoming family and friends for overnights or extended stays. Al III’s father had his awakening much later in life, at the cost of much graver bodily injury. Now Al III is accusing Uncle Tom of conflicts of interest because of his roles as chairman of the board of Hunt Petroleum and as trustee for both of the trusts that own the company. He was married to a model for less than a year, and he financed B movies through his video production company. Al III plans to try again.) But Al III thought she was talking about the lawsuit. Ross Perot Jr. went, along with million-dollar contributors Annette and Harold Simmons and Ruth Altshuler, one of Margaret Hunt Hill’s closest friends. The suit calls Tom the “spider in a web of conflicting interests” of the family. An addiction counselor had told them he was crying out for help. once said, “If you know how rich you are, you aren’t very rich.”. “There was a continuing need for more and more funds all the time,” Al Jr. says. By Gretel C. Kovach … What Erin wants, Erin gets.”. The Hill branch of the Hunt family had summered there ever since. Five months later, her 37-year-old grandson launched a multi-front lightning offensive in Dallas County District Court (the case … On that day, though, Vicki was overjoyed to see her son. His mother and father, despite their divorce a decade earlier, flew to Waco and surprised their son at his apartment. His father, Al Jr., had been her high school sweetheart; they were married for 13 years. “Do you remember that scripture from Jeremiah 33:3?” she asked. (Erin would not agree to be interviewed for this article.) “You need a break.”. “If taxes are owed, they should be paid.”. Hunt Consolidated, Inc. is the flagship entity of the entire Hunt family of companies, a privately owned group of entities based in Dallas, Texas. H.L. He says Al Jr. was medicated and suffering from both spinal and brain injuries. “As a wife, a mother, a volunteer in the community, she’s just unparalleled,” she says. It’s just unfortunate that this is all happening.”, Al III also serves on several boards, including the Baylor Hospital Foundation, St. Mark’s School of Texas, the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University, and the S.M. He dropped his old friends and hard-partying peers. Then they’re vacationing in France and Italy. 40 results. In other words, all of the things that Al III and his attorney, Bill Brewer, are complaining about. The documents outline the wills he will execute, and which of the dozens of interrelated family trusts he oversees. According to public records from police and the courts, the woman told the dispatcher that she had been arguing with Al Jr., and she thought her shoulder was dislocated. (Al III says Coates wanted him, not his own children, to oversee his Liechtenstein trust, but a New York court threw out the case in late January. Copyright © 2021, D Magazine Partners, Inc. All Rights Reserved. They were structured as “spendthrift”trusts. She was thinking of the truth about God, she says, that he would be there even when he felt all alone. Hunt is 84 years old. He usually answers his own phone. “I want a full accounting,” he said. Hunt Consolidated, Inc. is the flagship entity of the entire Hunt family of companies, a privately owned group of entities based in Dallas, Texas. They were standing there, gaping, when the woman who owned the house drove up. Al III became the president of his fraternity, Phi Delta Theta, which was trying to clean up its act, as well, after being kicked off campus. But Tom Hunt’s attorney says Al III is the one who won’t respect the trust’s provisions. And now 84-year-old Tom Hunt is faced with perhaps the ugliest Hunt dispute he’s ever seen. Typically the trust is the trust. Now the trustee has a duty to disclose certain information to the beneficiaries, to diversify its holdings, and to avoid self-dealing, or conflicts of interest. “The Hunts as a family, they have done so many great things for Dallas. “This isn’t their fault.”. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. He gave up drinking after the accident, one reason he and his son grew closer than ever. “But I made a decision that I wouldn’t pander, that I wouldn’t crawl back under some new deal for me. Then Al Jr. stuffed a pillow over the woman’s face, she said. Founded in 1947, Hunt Companies, Inc. (Hunt) is a diversified and international family … “This is an extortion deal,” Al Jr. kept telling the officers in an upstairs room of his house. “Oh, there’s my great uncles again,” he thought. Al Hill Jr. parked his wheelchair beside the front pew. Afterward, hang out in your very own bistro and bar. People want to be a part of what Erin is a part of.”, Rachael Dedman and Erin vacation together with their children each year and volunteer together on charity events. The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, designed by Santiago Calatrava, will soon rise in the distance over the Trinity River. Third place that year went to Miss Kansas, Tavia Shackles, who later married Clark Hunt, son of the late Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt. The wider Hunt clan has also included airline entrepreneurs, actors, an ambassador to Austria, lawyers, accountants, racehorse breeders, artists, and a fighter jet pilot. Two Hunt Petroleum executives serving on the advisory panel of Hassie’s trust were concerned enough about the changes in Texas law that they asked the trust’s beneficiaries in January 2007 to release them from liability. Erin was one of 100 women invited to spend a year raising money for local children’s charities, and she also served on the charity selection committee. Even when it was painful. “He was abusing alcohol at a good Baptist school,” his father says. Al has a good heart. “I guess I did pretty well,” Tom says. the hunt family dallas: hunt family dallas tx: ray hunt family dallas: the hunt family dallas family tree: Prev. Hunt. 15, with $14.2 billion spread out among 33 descendants. But as recently as mid-January, long after Brewer filed suit against Al Jr., Bickel & Brewer’s billing minions were still accidentally sending copies of payment requests on the Coates case to Al Jr.’s home. When Al III told another of his great-uncles, Hassie, that he was going to Baylor University, Hassie said, “Red brick Georgian, four story, white trim.” Hassie had been diagnosed with severe schizophrenia as a young man, which ended his short reign as the heir apparent to H.L.’s business. View royalty interests and mineral rights held by Hunt Family Trust of Dallas, TX. “The change was shocking. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. In September, Al Jr. fired his son from their personal services contract. “We think it’s ironic that the plaintiff would claim the legacy of H.L. Before he was cut off, Al III was bringing in about $1 million a year from his father’s consulting contract and his job as a vice president at Hill Development, now a Hunt Petroleum subsidiary. It’s castle keep, and they’ve got the castle. And while the terms of the income and assets signed over to Al III and his siblings remained the same, there was another difference. Decisions had to be made, before tax deadlines, about the future of the trust and Hunt Petroleum. Hunt and the legacy of his grandmother,” Bramblett says. But they’re the Duke and Duchess, spending it like it’s going to fall out of the sky.”, A longtime Hunt Hill family friend says, “He’s desperate for money because Erin has spent them into this situation, and he has to support her lifestyle. Then last summer she stopped eating, and a few weeks later, on June 14, she passed away at 91. But Al III didn’t grow up with any sense that he had to live up to a Hunt legacy. Then, in early October, he wrote a letter to Tom Hunt, trying to revoke his letter signing over most of his interest in Margaret’s trust, though the first letter had stated it was “irrevocable.” Tom Hunt threw the matter to probate court to decide. Instead they’re living out of the company [Hunt Petroleum], getting benefits and undervaluing the assets of the company. “It’s like a dime store novel,” says one Hunt family member who declined to be named. Hunt Petroleum-owned by two trusts under his control, those belonging to Margaret and Hassie, two of H.L.’s 14 children from three overlapping families-is worth upward of $4 billion. A later criminal indictment said that when the couple went to bed, Al Jr. had begun biting her genitals, and the couple fought. Earlier in the evening, he had taken the woman, a house guest and occasional date for the last nine years, to dinner at a strip club (it had a great chef, he says). He’s in the book.” On the back was a verse from Jeremiah: “Call unto me and I will answer thee and I will show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”. … The living room has a stone fireplace feature, while the formal dining room is decorated with hand-painted murals. Erin chaired the Neiman Marcus and Crystal Charity Ball Best Dressed luncheon and fashion show last year. The Hunt family adored Erin, at least at first. Margaret had been ailing for years. His grandmother Margaret even made the trip the summer before she died. On a scale of one to 10, she’s a zero, she says. “The only thing true in there is the names of my brother and sister! Al III says his father was only a fact witness on the Coates case and that Al III signed all the checks. The three-level five-bedroom, nine-bathroom home features banks of windows and hardwood flooring throughout. “I wanted to buy her something really nice to wear to the event,” he says. 3, the well that revealed the “Great Black Giant” of sweet crude hidden under the red clay of East Texas. It seemed like he needed one, too. If he and his sisters were now direct beneficiaries of Margaret’s trust, then he figured the trust should be divided into six parts, one for each of them. There is, of course, an explanation for Al III’s lawsuit that has very little to do with a full accounting or with honoring the legacy of H.L. Dallas, Texas is a city known for its rich sports tradition, oil, and energy industry, and, let's face it, the iconic 1970s-80s television show about J.R. Ewing and his misbehaving family … Wisps of white hair frame his bald head. “I love you unconditionally and I am here for you.”, His head was hanging down. That’s when Margaret’s 37-year-old grandson, Albert Hill III, sued his father, his sisters, his aunts, and Tom Hunt over the management of Margaret and Hassie’s trust funds and their primary asset, Hunt Petroleum. The Hunt family is the wealthiest in the area, at No. “This is not the son that I know,” she thought. Al III and Erin married the next year at a Baptist church in her hometown of Calhoun, Georgia, where her parents later built their mom-and-pop carpet business into a national distributor. Under the section of the suit titled “Defendants’ Shameless Campaign of Non-Disclosure, Browbeating, Threats, and Dirty Tricks,” Al III describes a summer meeting he says he had with Tom over the matter. You can’t dance.”. I love my wife.”. Finally they grabbed him by the arms to restrain him. He thought at that point his son was going to go along with the plan. Al III was a Highland Park High School student in the ’80s when his great uncles Bunker and Herbert Hunt made headlines for trying to corner the world’s silver market and then claiming two of the largest personal bankruptcies in history. In 2004, Al III and Erin Hill’s Neiman Marcus bill topped almost $96,000. Everyone is fine, and I’ve moved on.”. His face was buried in mulch, his arms pinned beneath him. Lamar was raised in Dallas, Texas. “I wanted to save the world.”. The windshield shattered, and wooden beams shot like spears toward Al III’s face. In pleadings filed in response to the suit, the defendants, each represented by a team of their own lawyers, categorically denied the accusations. Was it the righteous crusade of a young man challenging the hubris of his powerful relatives, fighting to be a good steward of his ancestors’ legacy for future generations? But that doesn’t tell the whole story.” Chapman says Erin is often underestimated because of her looks. Not long afterward, his wife, Erin, tried to fill their son’s prescription for eczema cream, and she discovered that their health insurance had been canceled. H.L. Hunt, based in El Paso, Texas, is a diversified, family-owned holding company that invests in operating businesses, real estate assets and infrastructure assets. But Al III had hardly spoken to his mother in years. What’s more, the trust explicitly forbids the beneficiaries from suing the trustee. Another was shattered and spilled. Al Jr. says he was looking at the new holly bushes that had replaced the azaleas along his first-floor porch. He struck a plea deal, paid a $1,000 fine (in addition to a donation to a women’s shelter), and was given probation. He tried to retire in 1988, when he hit 65, but H.L.’s eldest child, Margaret Hunt Hill, convinced him to stay on. “I changed my life, my major, my faith,” he says. “I was going to be the big Hunt, in terms of physical stature,” he says affably. While Al Jr. was trying to cut his son out of Margaret’s trust, he sent him a letter saying “you have certainly ended up becoming my best friend, in addition of course, to being my son. He’s not ashamed of it. Al III didn’t fully comprehend what had happened until a few days later, when he went to the scene of the crash and the wrecking yard. “Well I have.”. His hands remain stiff, and he still needs a wheelchair. They asked Al Jr. to enter treatment for alcoholism. When Frania learned of HL's other wives, they divorced in 1942. and his descendents helped shape the city of Dallas. He fell just a few feet, but he cracked a vertebra in his neck, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. Much love, Dad.” He sent the letter again later that month, and a third time the following month. That summer, the Hunt family convened a series of meetings to discuss the disposition of Margaret’s trust. But you can’t replace your son.”, She handed them a card. Hunt was born in El Dorado, Arkansas, the son of oil tycoon H. L. Hunt and younger brother of tycoons Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt. Hunt then had four more children with his mistress, a Hunt Oil Company secretary named Ruth Ray, whom he … Established in 1976, The Rosewood Corporation is a family-owned company with diverse worldwide operations and investments. 16 hours ago. After Suffering Storm Damage, These Dallas Nonprofits Are in Dire Need of Donations, As Power Returns, Questions About Outage Distribution Remain, WFAA Catches Gov. He attended Culver Military Academy and graduated from The Hill School in Pennsylvania in 1950 and Southern Methodist University in Dallas … The Crystal Charity Ball in December was the event of the year for Dallas high society. There was no indication that just five months later, Al III would sue them all. Later, when Tom returned from manning B-24 bombers in the Pacific theater of World War II, he went to work full-time for the Hunt family empire, which developed interests in oil, gas, real estate, farming, and food products. Tom Hunt sits at an executive desk downtown at Hunt Petroleum Corporation, on the 49th floor of Thanksgiving Tower, studying a thick stack of paper that has his lawyer worried. could memorize the order of a deck of cards after flipping through it once. He liked to gamble, whether in poker, horse racing, or oil drilling. Tom also became the trustee or advisor of many of those trusts, whose number and complexity grew as the family, and the family’s business, expanded. When he’s not in the field checking on his firm’s oil and gas wells, the chairman of Hunt Petroleum starts work in his corner office by 8 am.
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