A shy and reclusive heiress who lived alone for 20 years in a rambling mansion on Southwest Marine Drive left the bulk of an estate worth $40 million to the Vancouver Foundation, it was revealed Thursday.

Judith Jardine was 82 when she died seven years ago in her home — the WilMar Estate at 2050 SW Marine Drive. The estate comprises a lavish 9,000-square-foot mock-Tudor residence with a coach house on two acres of property, purchased by her grandfather in 1925 for $10,000 and today valued at $8.5 million.

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Born into a life of riches and privilege, Jardine was the last of a family whose fortune was made by her grandfather, William Kitchen.

Kitchen built railroads in New Brunswick before moving to B.C., where he became a director of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway, which in turn became BC Rail.

Jardine was Kitchen’s only grandchild; she never married and suffered from dementia in the final years of her life.

Apart from that, little else is known of her, said Vancouver Foundation President and CEO Faye Wightman, who announced details of the bequest in the Directions Youth Services Centre on Pacific and Hornby.

(Directions helps homeless youth living on Vancouver streets and is one of the organizations receiving funding from the foundation.)

“It’s as if she purposely decided to live under the radar,” said Wightman, who wished she had known Jardine while she was alive and could have thanked her for what is the largest bequest made to the foundation — and among the largest charitable donations ever made in B.C.

The bequest was made in the memory of Jardine’s father, William, and will set up a fund called the W. E. Jardine Memorial Fund.

Wightman said it came as a complete surprise when Jardine’s will was read and the beneficiaries were found to be the University of B.C. Faculty of Medicine ($6.4 million), the Vancouver School of Theology ($50,000) and the Vancouver Foundation ($34 million).

“This is someone none of us ever knew. She’s someone who the more you learn about, in some ways, the less you seem to know,” said Wightman.

“We have only a few pictures of her. We know she was passionately interested in the arts and teaching and was involved with the Vancouver Arts Council,” she said.

Jardine inherited WilMar and the family fortune in 1987 and lived in the house alone until her death in 2006.

Wightman alluded to a 2012 Vancouver Foundation study that showed that one of the issues for people living in Metro Vancouver was their sense of loneliness. “It’s interesting how life works. In that study the biggest issue for most people was a sense of loneliness and isolation and here’s this amazing woman that lived alone for the last 20 years of her life,” she said.

Under the terms of Jardine’s will the interest derived from the $34 million donated to the Vancouver Foundation — estimated at about $1.4 million a year — is to be split between the foundation and the B.C. Conference of the United Church of Canada.

The foundation will use the money to support a wide variety of community projects, said Wightman.

United Church minister Rev. Jenny Carter described the bequest as “truly awe inspiring.”

“The $700,000 we will be endowed with each year will go a long way to helping us engage in effective ministries. We are in the business of hope, in the business of love, and in the business of creating strong, healthy communities.

“We can change the social landscape in a positive way, so God bless Judith Jardine,” said Carter.

The estate proved difficult to wind up, said Wightman.

At one point the trustees had to search for a safety deposit box, she said.

When it was eventually found and opened it contained $6 million in Canada Savings Bonds.

gbellett@vancouversun.com