Martha Stewart and East Hampton – two names that are renowned for their power, prestige, beauty and fun. It seems only right, therefore, that the media mogul made her home (or rather, one of her homes) in New York's most exclusive zip code – and has allowed the location to influence her ever since.
In her recent eponymous Netflix documentary, the lifestyle guru explained how her daughter had encouraged her to move to East Hampton to seek a social life after her divorce. In 1991, she picked up the keys to an 1873 shingled beauty on Lily Pond Lane in the Long Island village for $1.7 million.
'My daughter said: ‘The place to go, Mother, as a single woman in the summertime, is the Hamptons,’ so I went to look. The realtor asked me, ‘What are you looking for?’ I said, ‘How about the wreck on the nicest street?’. The contractors all came and said, ‘What do you really want to do?’. I just said I want to make it into the most beautiful garden with a beautiful house,' Stewart says.
East Hampton is synonymous with quietly luxurious coastal decor ideas – but Stewart merged this with traditional design quirks that paid homage to the home's roots and original design. She worked alongside celebrated local contractor Ben Krupinski to enclose a covered porch off the kitchen, creating a dining area; wainscoted many of the ceilings; and knocked down walls to create a larger living room and luxe primary suite. 'It's an old-fashioned house, but it has a clean, pristine vibe,' she reveals via Martha Stewart.
For her furniture, Stewart purchased antiques from yard sales and stores, slowly filling the space 'with collections of mercury glass, McCoy pottery, and jadeite dishes.' As a celebrity style editor, I often catch glimpses inside beautiful homes, and without a doubt, this style lives on in the contemporary day. I see countless celebrities invest in colorful glassware, while wicker (like Stewart's bed below) is a consistent (yet stylish) favorite.
Outside, her rose garden was arguably the jewel of the property. Stewart even painted the exterior trim a teal hue to complement the shades of the flowers in her yard. Stewart later moved the rosebushes to her farm in Bedford and replaced them with dark green shrubbery and burgundy Japanese maple trees before switching to a biscuit color that better suited her new plantings.
'It was so clearly her vision at play,' comments Isolde Motley, the former corporate editor of Time Inc., in the documentary. 'We worked on Lily Pond Lane for about a year and a half,' Stewart adds. 'And when we finished, it was my fiftieth birthday. So I decided I’d have a great big fiftieth birthday party… It was the beginning of the best era of the Hamptons.'
Despite selling Lily Pond Lane in 2021, Stewart remains close to New York City. She often shares photographs of her iconic Bedford home, located around 45 minutes outside of Manhattan. Meanwhile, in summer, she likes to spend time on the tranquil grounds of Skylands, her property in Maine.
Shop the Martha Stewart garden edit
We can't all enjoy grounds as sprawling as Lily Pond Lane, but we can bring out the best of ours with these Stewart-approved gardening tools (and some roses, inspired by her space) below.
Our content director has written about gardens for 30 years, and these pruners are among her essentials. She says they're ‘designed for a lifetime,' thanks to their tough carbon steel and rust resistance. It's the best $12 a garden lover can spend.
Robust with deep green, disease-resistant foliage, this beautiful rounded bush will impress all season long. It has orange buds opening to cupped flowers that are perfectly apricot and what is described as a tea-like scent.
Much like the pruner, this mini weeder carries Stewart's name, so we can expect quality. It's perfect for those smaller weeding projects that require dexterity, and it's at the lowest price we've seen, so there's no better time to invest.
