Before her name became a byword for “good taste,” Martha Stewart was born Martha Kostyra, the oldest daughter of six children in a well-to-do Polish Catholic family. Raised in Nutley, New Jersey, she displayed an entrepreneurial knack from an early age: A 10-year-old Martha booked her first paid gig by planning birthday parties for the kids in her neighborhood. She began modeling as a teenager, earning $50 an hour to appear in ad campaigns for the likes of Chanel and Tareyton cigarettes. With her 5’9” frame and knockout beauty, Stewart’s modeling portfolio radiates the same mix of cold charm and playful sensuality that would later define her entire brand.
But it would take some time before Stewart became known, as David Letterman once referred to her, as the “James Brown of home entertaining.” Stewart modeled into her early twenties, mostly as a way to supplement her scholarship money at Barnard College. After graduating with a degree in architectural history, she married Yale Law student Andy Stewart, had a daughter, Alexis, in 1965, and worked on Wall Street as the only female stockbroker at her firm. “The job taught me so much about what it takes to build a real business, a real company—a meaningful and useful enterprise,” Stewart later recalled. “Yet it was not until I left Wall Street that I discovered my true entrepreneurial bent. I loved ideas. I loved building. I loved creating…and I loved making money as a result.”
Raised by parents who passed on their love of cooking and gardening, Stewart left Wall Street in the mid-’70s to start a catering company out of the basement of Turkey Hill, her iconic former residence in Westport, Connecticut. Her kitchen skills and elegant aesthetic earned her a reputation among any East Coaster lucky enough to attend one of her famed garden parties.
Many of the recipes she developed as a caterer would eventually be featured in her first cookbook, Entertaining, which became an instant bestseller when it hit holiday shelves in 1982. It’s a domestic bible imbued with her wisdom, stylishly delivered takes, and dry humor: “So the pie isn’t perfect? Cut it into wedges. Stay in control, and never panic,” she writes.
