my favorite picture of Martha in the Westport kitchen, Circa 1982 (photo courtesy Clarkson Potter)
I read with sadness this morning in the Wall Street Journal, that Martha Stewart is about to sell her Company, Martha Stewart Omnimedia to Sequential Brands Group Inc. While, I was not really surprised, I was sad that the day had come that the house that Martha built and fought for control over, was about to be “let go”. Moreover, I felt a sudden dread of the likely further diluting of the style and passion that made her famous in the “olden” days. While this could indeed be the healthiest “letting go” of Martha’s uber-control-oriented life, it is understandable but not without a sadness in the natural order of things. Warts, indiscretions, all the mis-steps along the way and all, I remain a huge fan of Martha.
Perhaps more than anything, I have over the years admired her ability to handle such great scope and challenge – managing and restoring several large homes with countless detail-oriented projects that boggle the mind. This, all while running businesses and multiple media outlets, conceiving and executing tv shows and branding products. Her capacity and range has never failed to astound me.
She wrestled control of her magazine from TimeWarner in 1997, having side-stepped her early Wall Street and modeling careers, and off she went. For a control-oriented and demanding person like Martha, her ability to accomplish under the weight of mostly self-imposed demands, is nothing short of amazing.
Everyone knows Martha. She’s one of those people who have been known, for decades now, by her first name.
In my generation, we grew up and envied the story of Martha Stewart. Everyone knows her story. From humble beginnings at the skirts of her fabled indefatigable mother, cooking, housekeeping and tending to the brood in a humble blue collar neighborhood in Nutley, NJ., Martha was also the daughter of a demanding and perfectionist Father. Not surprisingly, she became driven like few others at a very early age. Single-minded achiever and pusher forward. Insatiable and fervent student of just about everything. But, most importantly, a woman with a great eye and a shrewd nose for opportunity. Like no other in my generation (or other, that I can think of) she, in my mind, gets the woman’s award for a two pronged achievement – staying true to what she loved and was fascinated with and at the same time building a huge corporate empire out of it. While not immune to her own often big mistakes and the fickleness of the market, she has endured. My guess is that she has learned a lot by her mistakes, though those lessons may have been tough to take, and perhaps she has mellowed some over the years. Maybe even her sense of humor has blossomed.
Martha is about 12 years older than me. That is just about the perfect age differentiation for a shooting star kind of role model. I have indeed enjoyed watching the arc of that shooting star. When I was a young bride, I wanted a kitchen like Martha’s. I wanted a garden like Martha’s. And, though I didn’t have the resources or confidence that she had, she was a role model for me. We had many parallel interests and I welcomed her influence into my own efforts.
Many people have criticized her for her well-known imperious attitude, persnickety diction, impervious exterior and combustible ambition. Of course we all know about the double-standard here. It is highly recognizable and indeed a valid one. We all know the story of random corporate titans: Driven individual ruins marriage, ignores children and rages on in pursuit of single minded success, leaving many and most in the dust at the side of the road. Using her Mother as one element of prime example and taking what many would call the mundanity of 1940-50s suburban housekeeping chores, Martha grows an empire. She gives housekeeping an upgrade to “home keeping” and extracts out of it an opportunity to examine and derive, her vision of just about every tiny task, aka the utility and design of the perfect clothes hamper, and, in such, teaches a lesson. To give things perspective, I put it this way – if you can stay on the line of her creative trajectory and not get distracted and disgruntled by her mistakes, then you can love Martha – and I have and I do.
Over the years, I have loved to peak in and study her homes and surroundings, absorbing much from her design sensibility.
There was perhaps no story like the Westport house restoration that grabbed my imagination. There was no part of the job Martha wouldn’t do. Guilty of putting the accomplishment of her vision ahead of any and all? Yes. No doubt. But, she grew that house and garden into something unique and special and with an unyielding and extraordinary eye for detail and preservation that became a hallmark. In fact for Martha, like her Father, everything had to be perfect. It became, to my ear, the word she used most often and which might have been, on so many levels, her quicksand.
Chronicling the house and garden restoration in her book New Old House, it is hard not to see the happiness on her face.
image courtesy Clarkson Potter, Circa 1992
I spent many an hour, studying her garden book:
image courtesy Clarkson Potter Circa 1991
We all know that Martha moved from Westport in 2007 after a lot of objection from her neighbors and after finishing that, well, project. Bedford has offered more freedom and space to indulge her ambitious passions. She indeed seems most at home here.
http://marthamoments.blogspot.com/2006/05/marthas-move-to-bedford.html
Of course we all know about Martha’s trip to jail. She, however, did not let this mistake take her down. She took her sentence and then promptly moved on.
Her quintessential home in East Hampton also became an object of my fascination. Having grown up in Morristown, NJ and from an early age, been enamored with the remnants of the shingle style that remain here, I immediately was drawn to her promise of the depiction of “the beach house” http://marthamoments.blogspot.com/2006/06/marthas-lily-pond-lane.html – complete with overflowing and cascading arbors and bobbing explosions of snowball hydrangea.
Her recent feature on Skylands that appeared in Architectural Digest this month is revealing as well. Here she mixes some offbeat items into the picture that I wouldn’t do. But, that’s ok, the vision and her will to preserve is still stellar.
http://www.architecturaldigest.com/decor/2015-07/martha-stewart-skylands-maine-homes-article
Her newest iteration, her two series on PBS, Cooking School and Martha Bakes continue to attract my attention. I continue to learn from Martha. While I watch these shows, my eye wanders around her kitchens, to examine her ovens, her cabinetry, and each and every detail that she allows the eye to see – including the views outside the windows. While her obsession with the label maker and labeling everything in sight belies a continuing borderline neurosis with perfectionism, I prefer to accept this as just one small idiosyncracy of Martha.
Only a few of Martha penchants fell off of my list. I’m not a big fan of her obsessive organizing, although with the complexity of her life I can understand her tendency toward this. I’m not particularly a fan of her recent obsession with colder colors that for me project a somewhat gloomy atmosphere, her more singular and paired-down, or her almost contemporary design statement, particularly in some kitchens done in stainless steel. And – her obsessive washing of her cats? Yikes! Beyond these few forays that I can’t attach to, I continue to look forward to seeing what she’s up to. And yes, I love and respect her fervor to continue to keep things fresh.
Martha, being the shrewd and honed businesswoman that she is, probably has been trying to perfect-time the sale of her Company for awhile now. With the success of her new PBS shows, she shows few signs of slowing down at 73. I continue to look for examples like Martha who keep the thread going long after many wither off the vine in their 60s. I will look forward with great anticipation to the next several chapters. At the same time, however, I will continue to treasure my oldest books from her collection, where the seeds of her inspiration and style sensibility most closely coincide with mine.
Kudos, Martha. Hope you continue to have a great ride!