If there is such a thing as a gift that keeps on giving, Howard Hughes' estate is certainly it. The billionaire left a mare's nest of assets behind, and one small piece of his estate just paid off for his heirs almost 35 years after his death. While Hughes, through his activities as an aviator, industrialist and filmmaker had ties to many states and a few countries (his Florida connections led him to open his medical institute in Miami in 1953), toward the end of his life he acquired a great deal of real estate in Nevada.

The property in this case was part of those vast Nevada holdings. Most of Hughes' estate had slowly been disposed of by the estate administrators when, in 1996, Rouse Co. bought the remaining assets, including 22,500 acres of land in Nevada. As part of the agreement, Rouse promised to give the Hughes heirs a percentage of the profits from any future sale of the property.

Like everything else associated with Hughes's legacy, the path to realizing any profit took a few twists and turns. In 2004, General Growth Properties Inc. purchased Rouse for $11.3 billion and, with that deal, assumed the Rouse responsibility to the Hughes heirs. In 2009, General Growth filed for bankruptcy protection.

General Growth is best known as an owner of shopping malls, but its holdings included large tracts of developable land. When the recession hit, both its retail operations and its real estate portfolio were hit hard. The corporation's proposed chapter 11 reorganization includes a plan to separate its traditional retail properties from "master-planned community" and commercial real estate operations.

The Nevada land that was part of the Hughes estate had been designated as a planned community in Las Vegas. When General Growth filed for bankruptcy, the heirs got involved in the disposition of the community and how it was to be valued. The parties eventually reached a settlement: General Growth will pay Hughes' heirs $230 million.

When Hughes died in 1976, he had no will on file with an attorney or a court. Although a handwritten will was found a few weeks after his death, a Nevada court ruled it was a fake in 1978. It took the courts another six years to figure out who his heirs were and to determine how his business empire had been organized.

Resource: Bloomberg "General Growth to Pay Howard Hughes Heirs $230 Million for Nevada Project" 9/20/10