📍Nutley, New Jersey, USA
1944 – 1959“Martha Stewart was born Martha Helen Kostyra in Jersey City, New Jersey, in August 1941, the second of six children of Polish-American parents, Edward and Martha Kostyra, and when she was three the family moved to a modest house in Nutley, a leafy suburb in northern New Jersey. Her father was a pharmaceutical salesman who loved gardening, and her mother, a schoolteacher, was a superb cook and homemaker; between them, they taught her everything about growing vegetables, cooking Polish dishes, sewing and keeping house. With six children and little money, the house was busy and everyone had chores. Martha was her father's favourite, and he taught her to garden in the family's backyard, where they grew vegetables and fruit, while her mother taught her to bake, preserve and sew. She was a high-achieving, ambitious girl: an excellent student at Nutley High School, she took advanced maths, planned memorable school events, and ran a small business organising children's birthday parties. She also babysat for neighbourhood families, including, as the story goes, the children of New York Yankees players. At fifteen she began modelling in New York to earn money for college, and she went on to study at Barnard College. After working as a stockbroker, she started a catering business, wrote her first book, Entertaining, in 1982, and built a lifestyle empire with magazines, television and products. Her love of gardening, cooking and homemaking was rooted in that busy, frugal Nutley home.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today