Madeleine Pickens | |
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Pickens (4th from left) at a ribbon-cutting for a 2008 grand opening at the Naval Medical Center San Diego
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Born |
Madeleine Baker March 5, 1947 Kirkuk, Iraq |
Other names | Madeleine Farris, Madeleine Richter, Madeleine Paulson |
Occupation | Business Owner, philanthropist |
Spouse(s) | include Allen E. Paulson (1988-2000) and T. Boone Pickens (2005-2012) |
Children | Dominique Richter |
Honors |
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Madeleine Anne Pickens is a business woman and philanthropist who has lived in the United States since 1969. She is a developer of and stockholder in the Del Mar Country Club in Rancho Santa Fe, California, and the owner of the Mustang Monument: Wild Horse Eco-Resort near Wells, Nevada and the founder of Saving America's Mustangs. She is also a thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder. She is the widow of American businessman Allen E. Paulson and former wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens.
Madeleine Pickens was born Madeleine Baker on March 5, 1947 in Kirkuk, Iraq where her father, Bill Baker, was a British oil executive. He was also a golf course designer, who built a golf course in Kirkuk and cut down his golf clubs to teach the five-year old Madeleine to play. After her family left Iraq, Pickens grew up in France and England, where Baker designed several courses. Pickens and her twin sister Christine, both British citizens, moved from England to the Bahamas in 1965. At some point she started using the name Madeleine Farris.
Pickens modeled and worked as a flight attendant for Pan American Airlines in her twenties. She moved to Marina Del Rey, California in 1969 and went into business for herself, providing cabin service crews for corporate jets and special charter flights. In 1976, she was featured in an article in Black Belt magazine. She was married to Dr. Robert Richter, with whom she had a daughter, Dominique, in 1980.
She met Allen Paulson, the founder of Gulfstream Aerospace in 1983, and married him in 1988. In 1993 they bought the Del Mar Country Club in Rancho Santa Fe, California, where she drew upon her background to design and build the golf course. Upon Paulson's death in 2000, she and his children from his previous marriages disputed over the estate until 2003, at which time she was awarded in the settlement, among other assets, stock in the Country Club. In September 2015, the IRS filed suit against beneficiaries of Paulson's estate, including Pickens, for unpaid estate taxes. Because the settlement agreement had specified that the remaining beneficiaries would pay the taxes, Pickens filed a cross claim against the remaining beneficiaries for breach of fiduciary duty and indemnity from any tax liability. They then filed a motion to dismiss the cross claim. On April 11, 2017, the motion to dismiss Picken's cross-claim for breach of fiduciary duty was granted, but the remaining benefidiary's motion to dismiss Picken's request for indemnity was denied. As of September 3, 2017, the question of whether Pickens will be liable for estate taxes remains unsettled.