#Julia Flesher Koch, NYC’s richest woman, has turned into a hermit in the Hamptons
“#Julia Flesher Koch, NYC’s richest woman, has turned into a hermit in the Hamptons”
But this summer, friends say, the lady of the house has turned into a hermit.
Julia is holed up with her parents and three children — David Jr. and Mary Julia, who attend Duke and Harvard, respectively; and John, a student at a Manhattan prep school — and apparently doesn’t set foot off the grounds. They’re keeping busy, according to a source close to the family, with ping-pong tournaments, puzzles and pizza nights.
“She came back to New York from Florida in June and stays on the property,” said one friend. “She doesn’t leave because of COVID. The family and staff all wear masks inside.”
And it’s not just her massive front gate that’s locked up. Insiders say that 57-year-old Julia — New York’s richest woman, with a fortune that Forbes estimates at $43.9 billion — has also closed her pocketbook.
Fossil-fuels magnate David, who died Aug. 23, 2019, was well known for his charitable spending: donating $100 million to Lincoln Center in 2008, and tens of millions to the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other cultural institutions over the years.
His right-wing political boosterism also earned him the nickname the “Tea Party’s wallet.”
But now, a society observer told The Post, Julia’s “pocketbook is locked shut.”
Through a spokesperson, Julia said otherwise: “As president of the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, Julia has both pledged and given millions of dollars to medical and educational purposes so far in 2020.”
Insiders say she is mainly busy taking stock of her new life and the responsibilities that come with such incredible wealth — “Foolish people will try getting to her for her money,” the friend said — as well as an ugly, shocking lawsuit that paints the widow as having been cruel to her then-ailing husband.
Former employee Felicia Racine, who worked for the family as a bodyguard, filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint in July, alleging discrimination and much, much more.
The suit details complaints from nurses that Julia “won’t allow [David] to have a feeding tube” even though there were fears of him “basically starving to death.”
Racine alleges in the complaint that “Julia could not deal with David anymore and did not want his life prolonged further.”
The 29-year-old former employee said that she was involved in planning the security for a lavish, secret family trip to South Africa, code-named “Project X.”
Why secret? “Mrs. Koch did not want [David] on the trip and ruining it,” Racine alleged to The Post and in the complaint.
She maintained that a similar deception was put into play for a $40 million townhouse on East 76th Street. “He obviously did not want to buy the house; Mrs. Koch ended up buying it with, I guess, her own money,” said Racine. “She bought it independent of him. We had to refer to the house as ‘Hamilton.’”
When news of the purchase ran in The Post, Racine said, “[Julia] told me to get rid of the newspaper so Mr. Koch would not see it.”
Recalling a luxe dinner party at the family’s $40 million Palm Beach “villa” El Sarmiento, Racine told The Post that David “sat down and put his hand on Mrs. Koch’s knee and he said, ‘I love you, Julia.’ She said, ‘I know’ — not ‘I love you’ back. Then she went to the house manager and told him to take Mr. Koch upstairs and lock him in the room so he could not come down and embarrass her.”
An insider told The Post: “Julia wasn’t hiding David for the wrong reasons, she was protecting him for the right reasons.” As for the feeding tube, the insider said, “[David] had a living will and his directions were carried out by his doctors and lawyers.”
“Felicia Racine has achieved her goal of turning a supposed employment claim into a matter of … extorting funds from Julia Koch,” said a spokesperson. “Ms. Racine’s alleged stories . . . are just a gratuitous attempt to smear Julia and David Koch and their children.”
Racine’s attorney David H. Rosenberg told The Post: “They are trying to scare my client in retaliation. They accused her of extortion, and extortion is illegal. They are threatening to come after her.”
This could not have been what Julia bargained for when she moved from Arkansas to Manhattan 36 years ago, looking for a bigger life. Freshly graduated from the University of Central Arkansas in the tiny town of Conway, she landed a gig as fashion designer Adolfo’s assistant — dressing former First Lady Nancy Reagan and falling in with a crowd of Big Apple strivers.
Julia lived on a tight budget — paid only $200 per week, she’s talked about worrying where rent would come from each month — until she went on a blind date, in 1991, with David Koch. The friend described him as “a goofy playboy” at the time.
Party planner Bronson van Wyck, a longtime friend of Julia’s, said she was in high demand back in the 1980s and ’90s. “She was one of the prettiest girls in New York when she met David,” van Wyck told The Post.
In 1995, one year before they married, Julia reportedly encouraged David to buy Jacqueline Onassis’ digs at the elite 740 Park Avenue. He offered $17 million — outbidding showbiz executive Terry Semel — but acceptance at the snooty building still was not a lock.
“David wasn’t sure he would pass the board,” Michael Gross, author of “740 Park,” told The Post. “He had a reputation as a party guy.”
If Koch’s libertarian politics — which leaned toward fewer business regulations and lower taxes for the wealthy — and reputation as a climate-change denier bothered Julia, you wouldn’t know it.
“She had nothing to do with David’s politics,” said the friend. “She knows the Kochs’ views are hated by liberals and she is doing nothing to exacerbate that.”
Julia seems to work as hard to stay out of the press as her husband did to use it. Nonetheless, her inheritance positions her as the most eligible woman in NYC.
The bodyguard’s suit coyly hints that Julia may have been more than platonic with a man named Charles Manger, but the friend told The Post: “I think the extent of the relationship with Manger was made up.”
According to Page Six, Manhattan society has been “abuzz” that show-biz publicist Peggy Siegel has been roped in to introduce Julia to “find a new husband,” although both women denied it.
“I don’t think Julia will start dating soon,” said a pal who serves as godmother to one of the Koch children. “Plenty of people will want to date Julia. She is smart and beautiful and has plenty to offer. But I think it will happen organically.”
Her coming-out party should have been this past May when van Wyck was due to be honored at a benefit gala for his work in developing the High Line.
“She bought a table,” van Wyck said. “It might have been one of the first things she went to [since David’s death] — but the quarantine put us in stasis.”
As for the future of Julia and an impending second act, he added: “I think her post-David Koch life has not begun yet. It will be interesting to see what happens and where it goes.”
If there’s one upside to being locked away, friends say, it’s that gold diggers don’t stand a chance.
“Men can’t get to her,” said the friend. “They can’t even get in the front door.”
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