HEIRESS SAVED THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDENS AND KEPT ON GIVING TO THE CAUSES THAT WERE DEAR TO HER

Enid Annenberg Haupt, a publishing heiress who thought nothing of selling off her jewelry and fine art if it meant she could give millions more to benefit cancer patients, museums and the public gardens she loved so dearly. Haupt, who was known best for rescuing the New York Botanical Gardens vast, Victorian-style conservancy from demolition, died Tuesday at her home in Greenwich, Conn. The first $5 million she gave the garden came from the sale of fine jewwlry she kept in a vault. When she wanted to donate $25 million to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, she sold 15 Impressionist paintings. In the last 25 years, she donated more than $140 million to projects that included gardens at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C., and fountains on the Ellipse between the White House and the Washington Monument. She also bought George Washington's former home in Alexandria, Va., and donated it to the American Horticultural Society. Haupt also made major gifts to museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C..