Dianne Feinstein was one of the Senate’s richest members throughout her trailblazing career — thanks to her billionaire husband.
While others in Congress struggled to make ends meet, sleeping in their offices to save on rent, Feinstein commuted from San Francisco aboard a Gulfstream G650 jet (pre-owned, the aircraft averages $61,815,000), sported expensive jewelry and flitted from one mansion to the next.
Her last disclosure, in May, put her net worth at $69.4 million.
For much of her wealth, Feinstein — who passed away Thursday in her Washington DC home at age 90 — could thanked her second husband, Richard Blum.
He was an astute investor and the founder of Blum Capital Partners.
But this year, after his death in February 2022, and as her own health publicly failed, an ugly dispute among the couple’s children cast new light on their fortune and raised the prospect of a court battle over the estate.
Feinstein and Blum had planned for their passings, with their palatial property portfolio and a group of bank accounts held in a marital trust.
His portfolio was held separately, and after Blum’s death she gained an annual income of $1 million from the trust set up to deal with his investments.
With Feinstein’s passing, Feinstein’s daughter Katherine — a San Francisco judge — and Blum’s three daughters, Annette Blum, Heidi Blum Riley and Eileen Blum Bourgarde will split the estate four ways.
The biggest single item in the estate is the couple’s home in San Francisco; Feinstein resided in a three-story 1917 Italianate mansion on the famed Lyon Steps.
Its landscaped gardens have stunning views over the Bay, and it has a valuation to match: $21 million.
In DC, she repaired to the luxury of a $7.4 million spread in the tony American University Park neighborhood.
The 1936 French Revival home and surrounding grounds, which include a pool house, guest house and carriage house, were purchased in 2001 for $5.1 million.
Seen from overhead, Dianne Feinstein’s Washington DC home is expected to be inherited by Katherine Feinstein, Dianne’s biological daughter.
That home is not part of the marital trust so will, likely, go to Feinstein’s daughter, Katherine.
Off the job, Dianne Feinstein had a duplex in Kauai, Hawaii, and a getaway in Stinson Beach in Marin County.
The island paradise condo was worth up to $5 million and was rented out when not being used, while the beach home in Marin County boasted view of Bolinas Lagoon, loaded with wildlife, giving it a valuation of $7.5 million.
The waterfront house was at the center of the ugly bust-up between her daughter Katherine and, by proxy, Blum’s daughters, which exploded this year.
Katherine sued the trust which held the property, saying her mother wanted to sell the 3,600 square front home because she would not use it without her husband, but that his daughters were trying to slow the sale so they could use the house at her expense.
Katherine maintained that the home was tying up funds for medical expenses, the LA Times reported.
It appears that her death will end the dispute, but having one of the children suing the three others could also open the way for a battle over the estate.
Feinstein had also offloaded two other properties recently.
In 2022, following the death of her husband, she sold their 36-acre Bear Paw Ranch in Aspen, Colorado, for north of $25 million.
In Lake Tahoe, California, their seven bedroom compound snagged $36 million.
The final price was a $10 million haircut on the original listing.
On top of that, it’s been estimated that Feinstein had up to $25 million in a long-running blind trust.
Bank accounts were loaded with $6 million to $30 million.
And, just to make sure she never ran low on greenbacks, there was a pension valued at $500,000 to $1 million.
That money appears likely to go to Katherine, who with husband Rick Mariano has one daughter, Eileen.
Blum’s daughters have six children between them.
Besides her marital wealth, Feinstein, the daughter of a San Francisco surgeon, herself previously owned a stake in the city’s Carlton Hotel Properties, which was worth $37.5 million at its 2019 peak.
The Carlton investment would have made Feinstein rich by any standards.
But hubby Bloom took her to the next stratosphere — and paved her way into politics.
By the age of 30, in 1965, Blum was already a millionaire and a partner at the San Francisco investment firm Sutro & Company where he led a deal that saved Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
In 1983, three years after their marriage, Blum played a role in Feinstein putting together $400,000 to finance her winning a mayoral recall that was launched against her.
He was also said to have put $3 million into an ill fated for the California governor in 1990.
Two years later, working with a hefty marital bankroll, she made it to the Senate.
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