Martha Stewart at Home: 25 Photos of the Legendary Homemaker in Her Element
Martha Stewart at Home: 25 Photos of the Legendary Homemaker in Her Element
Whether it's a farm in Connecticut or a lodge in Maine, the tastemaker's home is always a good thing
Before there were Pinterest boards and Instagram reels, there was Martha Stewart. The homemaking icon elevated quotidian domestic tasks like cooking and gardening to aspirational levels, feeding a burgeoning demand for lifestyle advice through scores of her own made-from-scratch recipes, elaborately set tablescapes, and pristinely manicured grounds. She became the first American woman to build a billion-dollar company—one based on sharing knowledge of the domestic arts, no less. “She was the first person that saw the marketability of her personal life,” her friend Lloyd Allen claims in Martha, the 2024 Netflix documentary. “Martha was the first influencer.”
She honed the homemaking skills upon which her empire was built at a four-acre former tobacco and onion farm dubbed Turkey Hill in Westport, Connecticut. In the span of nearly 30 years, Martha and her now ex-husband Andy Stewart transformed the run-down spot into an estate teeming with fantastical gardens and dreamy ADUs. It was during her time at Turkey Hill that Martha launched the catering company that led to her first book deal. “Turkey Hill was a dream place for my family and me for many years,” she once wrote. “It taught us, it nurtured us, it fed us, and it occupied us in so many wonderful and instructive ways. I would not be who I am today without the vast knowledge I gained there, on that small bit of paradise.” In 2000, she moved on from that home to a 153-acre farm in upstate New York, where she now spends most of her time.
After losing control of her company in the early aughts and serving a five-month stint in prison (for a highly publicized insider-trading-related conviction she maintains was unwarranted), Martha also lost millions of dollars and much of her influence. However, the prototypical domestic goddess regained most of her cultural currency over the past decade with aplomb; these days, many of her younger fans know her mainly as a savvy, sassy power player on social media, where her two million followers tune in daily to get the scoop on her lifestyle tastes. Her recent Netflix documentary spotlighted the cultural tastemaker’s trailblazing legacy, underscoring the fact that Martha’s creative evolution remains far from complete. In 2023, she graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, which made her the brand’s most senior cover model. And after celebrating the release of her 100th book in 2024, the queen of homemaking debuted her 101st this past spring, a tome on all things gardening in March 2025. Below, we’re taking a look back at some more intimate moments of the star in her element: at home.
Photo: Arthur Schatz/Getty Images1/25Turkey Hill
Martha and Andy purchased Turkey Hill for $46,750 in 1971, when it was just a few large trees and the 1805-built Federal-style farmhouse pictured here. The couple subsequently bought adjacent land, turning the property into a four-acre pastoral paradise. In this 1980 image, Martha and Andy stand in front of the pool they installed themselves. To the left is their carriage house, which the couple also built with their own hands—along with a little help from Martha’s brother George. Upstairs was a full apartment for guests.
Photo: Susuan Wood/Getty Images)2/25The tobacco barn
Snug amongst a thicket of trees on Turkey Hill is a 1900-built tobacco barn, which Martha gifted to Andy on Father’s Day 1976. She purchased the structure disassembled for $15,000, so the Stewarts put together the loose chestnut beams, aged red-stained siding, slate roof tiles, and wide floor planks by hand. The completed outbuilding served as a storage area as well as a venue for hosting parties as needed. The tobacco barn is also the spot where Martha first uttered what would become her career’s catch phrase: “It’s a good thing.”
Photo: Susuan Wood/Getty Images3/25A model garden
Long before she fashioned the art of living in her own image, Martha was a model signed to the prestigious Ford agency, where she booked gigs from her teen years well into her days as a Barnard student. Her resume included a campaign for Breck shampoo, a television spot for Lifebuoy soap, and some work for Chanel during her college career. In this 1976 image, Martha makes holding a basket of eggs look stylish as she strikes a pose with a fresh collection from the chickens on her farm. Although only five years into owning Turkey Hill, the lush landscape in the background already shows signs of thriving under Martha’s green thumb—a foreshadowing of “good things” to come.
Photo: Susuan Wood/Getty Images4/25Living off the land
Martha has long been vocal about her appetite for organic food and living off the land. “Ever since I’ve owned a house, I’ve craved backyard farmyard animals,” the businesswoman wrote in a 2019 article for her website. Ever the farmer, Martha is seen here at Turkey Hill, commanding a gaggle of geese while the farm’s 50 chickens mill around in their coop. Martha also tended to ducks, turkeys, lambs, goats, sheep, and hogs on the property. “Even the animals, domesticated or not, coexisted very well,” she recalled of the property’s bucolic atmosphere. “One night, late, with a full moon hanging above the treetops, I went looking for my errant Blue Max, a black chow. He was down at the chicken coop with the chickens safely inside, an opossum perched atop the perimeter fence, and a cat or two curled up on the warm stone steps. It seemed just as if I was looking at the Turkey Hill version of Peaceable Kingdom.”
Photo: Susuan Wood/Getty Images5/25The heart of the home
Martha’s culinary journey began in her childhood kitchen in Nutley, New Jersey, where she absorbed her mother’s teaching and fostered a love for the process of cooking. “I stood by my mother’s side, learning everything I could,” Martha reflects in the Netflix documentary. Her early years in the kitchen laid the foundation for the successful catering company she launched in 1973. Of course the DIY icon loves making her own pasta; this 1976 image shows her laying out a fresh batch in her home’s kitchen.
Photo: Susuan Wood/Getty Images6/25Good natured
Martha makes her stance on the value of gardening clear in the Netflix documentary, reciting a maxim she lives by: “If you want to be happy for a year, get married. If you want to be happy for 10 years, get a dog. If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, make a garden.” Her connection to the land was nurtured in the backyard of her childhood home, where her father, an avid gardener, passed on his horticultural wisdom. “Dad made each of us learn how to garden,” Martha says. “I wanted to learn. He had a lot to teach, and I listened.” This early communion with nature blossomed into a lifelong passion, as Martha later transformed each property she acquired into magazine-worthy spreads of exotic plants and vegetables.
Photo: Susuan Wood/Getty Images7/25The formative years of Martha’s design philosophy
“Turkey Hill was my original farmhouse and my first laboratory,” Martha reflects on her website. The estate’s gardens are where the domestic maven developed her foundational garden philosophy centered on preserving sight lines. “Axis of vision, an architectural principle, is so important,” she once told Veranda. “No matter how big your property is, allocating your space prior to planting is essential,” she emphasized. This 1976 aerial shot captures Martha on the Turkey Hill grounds during the early days of her philosophy’s development.
Photo: Susan Wood/Getty Images8/25Martha’s bespoke kitchen
Though gardening was no small part of her work at home, the kitchen was the centerpiece of Martha’s nascent empire. She spent countless hours testing recipes in the kitchen she and Andy built. The bespoke cabinets pictured here are made of native Massachusetts sycamore wood. And, being the thrifter that she is, Martha sourced the pot rack in the foreground at a tag sale.
Photo: Susan Wood/Getty Images9/25Centuries-old accents
At Turkey Hill, Martha and Andy’s dream kitchen took shape as a large, eat-in space. Among the room’s many delectable design details was its original fireplace, from which Martha meticulously stripped 173 years of paint to expose rich pumpkin pine wood beneath. Adjacent to the fireplace was an original built-in dutch oven, in which Martha would place coals from the fireplace to bake pizzas. She also installed 19th-century hooks on the mantel to hang everything from dried herbs to Christmas decorations.
Susan Wood/Getty Images10/25Cooking in the kitchen
The DIY queen is seen chopping an onion in the kitchen at Turkey Hill in 1976. In the 1990s, the wood-lined kitchen received an extensive professional renovation, lightening up the space with a white and pale green color scheme. White marble united the countertops, backsplash, and a spacious center island lined with drawers for plentiful storage. Martha kept the pot rack, which continued to proudly display her copper cookware.
Photo: Arthur Schatz/Getty Images11/25Martha’s catering roots
Through her culinary talents and keen eye for aesthetics, Martha’s catering service caught the attention of Manhattan’s cultural elite. She built up a roster of high-brow clientele, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and Sotheby’s, as well as private clients for soirées in residences across Bedford and Westchester, New York. The homemaking virtuoso’s bold vision propelled the company into her first million dollar business. “We tried to be a little outrageous,” recalls Martha of her innovative approach to gastronomy and presentation. “We wanted to catch people’s attention.”
Photo: Arthur Schatz/Getty Images12/25For the love of baskets
This 1976 shot shows Martha inside the kitchen of Turkey Hill, serving homemade food and drinks to friends while some pieces from her now famed basket collection hang above. The icon has amassed hundreds of specialty baskets over the years and houses them in a shed she calls the “Basket House” on her current home base in upstate New York. “I love baskets of all kinds and am always looking for rare pieces to add to my collection,” the lifestyle guru once said.
Susan Wood/Getty Images13/25Setting the table
Martha sets the table with some blue-and-white dishes from her collection in this 1976 snapshot. Naturally, she has an enviable collection of dishes in addition to baskets. “If you saw my dish basement, you would be very jealous,” the businesswoman told AD in 2024. “It’s lined with many, many, many shelves, and that’s where the masses of glass, silver, and crystal are housed. And the piles of pottery—you would love. It’s like my own personal prop house.”
Photo: Arthur Schatz/Getty Images14/25Chickening out
Years before she crafted her Connecticut sanctuary, Martha began chicken farming on her Middlefield, Massachusetts, property. The weekend getaway was a converted one-room schoolhouse that started off with no electricity or pipe-born water. By the time she and Andy had set up shop at their Westport abode, they were raising a flock of 50 chickens. And by 2019, at her current home in upstate New York, Martha housed over 200 chickens in four coops and a number of covered wire structures, which allow the birds to roam free while staying safe from the New England weather. Among her brood are several different breeds, including Cream Legbars, heritage Barred Plymouth Rocks, and Blue Coppers.
Photo: Arthur Schatz/Getty Images15/25Feline family
Cats are among the animals that have remained constant companions throughout the homemaker’s adult life. Martha, photographed here in 1980 with her Persian cat, has long favored this distinguished breed. Most recently, in June 2025, she welcomed Lilium, a brown Persian longhair from Doha, Qatar, bringing her current Persian cat family to three.
Arthur Schatz/Getty Images16/25The end of an era
Martha and Andy are pictured in 1980, amidst construction in one of the structures at Turkey Hill. The former couple separated seven years later, with their divorce finalized in 1990. Martha held onto the property until 2007, when she sold it for $6.7 million. “Was it hard to leave Turkey Hill? Yes and no,” the media mogul later reflected. I definitely miss certain aspects—the soil with no rocks; the trees I planted with my own two hands; the rare and exotic specimens I searched for in catalogs and nurseries everywhere; the beautiful stones, lovingly placed by [landscaper] George [Hoyland] at entryways and in pathways; the outdoor kitchen, where I cooked so many wonderful meals; and the mudroom, where I wrote my books, so many books. The house itself was so comfortable to me, me who never sits down except to eat or write.”
Photo: Michael Nagle/Getty Images17/25On home confinement
Martha began a five-month prison sentence in 2004 after the FBI brought charges against her for obstruction of justice during an investigation into an insider trading case. (Martha maintains her innocence.) The prison was nicknamed Camp Cupcake for its comparative leniency, although Martha has said that the sentence was not without its hardships. After serving her time, Martha was released in March 2005 and spent the next five months under house arrest at her farm in Katonah, New York, which she bought in 2000. Martha is pictured here greeting the swarm of press that descended upon the estate in the days following her return home.
Photo: Michael Nagle/Getty Images18/25Kublai Khan Paw Paw
During her home confinement, Martha was photographed here with one of her most beloved pets, a chow chow named Kublai Khan Paw Paw—better known simply as Paw Paw. “He was always my loyal companion,” Martha said about her pet of almost 13 years. Paw Paw travelled around the world with Martha, and he became the homemaker’s most photographed dog, appearing frequently in television commercials, national print ads, her Martha Stewart Living magazine, and on her show. Paw Paw “was never disobedient, and never, ever, required me to raise my voice,” Martha said right after his death in 2008. “I will miss him always.”
Photo: Stephen Chernin/Getty Images19/25Cantitoe Corners
The 153-acre upstate New York farm, nicknamed Bedford Farm or Cantitoe Corners, is Martha’s primary residence today. By 2011, the grounds were home to 15 buildings, including a European-style, eight-stall stable with a stone façade that houses her horses. Martha (pictured at center in orange) offers carriage rides through the grounds of Cantitoe Corners, which are laced with more than four miles of carriage roads. The property also hosts several greenhouses, guesthouses, a gym, and an enviable chef’s kitchen (naturally).
Photo: Peter Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images20/25Friesian horses
Martha can sometimes be found on horseback meandering the grounds of Cantitoe Corners. In 2011, the media mogul went riding the trails with NBC’s Ann Curry, pictured here. The Entertaining author favors Friesian horses, a breed native to the Netherlands known for their shiny black coats and long elegant manes. “Beautiful, friendly Friesian horses became the focal point of [my] farm life, drawing carriages along dirt roads and offering big, comfortable ‘seats’ to my friends and me for long weekend rides along the many miles of trails,” Martha once said. The passionate animal enthusiast owns a number of these horses, including Rutger, 27-year-old Rinze, and two 14-year-old males named Hylke and Geert acquired in 2022.
Photo: Peter Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)21/25Hosting famous friends
Martha invited the cast of NBC’s The Today Show (to which she regularly contributed) to her Bedford farm for Thanksgiving dinner in 2011. Included on the intricate tablescape were her homemade cranberry sauce and cornbread, both in the shape of a turkey.
Photo: Peter Kramer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images22/25From scratch
At home, Martha practices what she preaches; here, she demonstrated a bit of her penchant for consuming foods made from scratch for the viewers of The Today Show in 2011. Together with Al Roker, the queen of all things homemade pressed freshly picked apples from her orchard to make cider for a Thanksgiving feast. One of her prize-winning chow chows, alongside her French bulldogs Francesca and Sharkey, is pictured watching from the sidelines.
Photo: Eric Liebowitz via Getty Images23/25Martha’s personal treasures on offer
Faced with limited storage space across her residences, Martha hosted her inaugural tag sale in May 2022. There, the entrepreneur gave devotees access to decades of her carefully curated acquisitions. Naturally, everything from antique china to stemware, baskets, furniture, fine art, vintage clothing, and silverware—among many other decorative objects—was up for grabs. This snap shows Martha and her antiques team discussing a few of the artworks and vintage prints that were for sale. Documented for the ABC television special The Great American Tag Sale With Martha Stewart, the two-day event generated $800,000—all benefiting the Mount Sinai Martha Stewart Center for Living.
ESTERSOHN PIETER24/25Staying at Skylands
In 2015, Martha opened the doors of her 63-acre Skylands estate on Maine’s Mount Desert Island for an Architectural Digest tour, and posed for this photo in front of the 1920s home with her dogs, Ghenghis Khan, Sharkey, and Frencesca. The home, which is constructed from local stone, was designed by architect Duncan Candler for Edsel Ford, the son of Henry Ford and the namesake of the red 1958 Edsel Roundup pictured alongside the homemaker extraordinaire. The historic abode, which Martha uses as a summer house, has been under her ownership since 1997, when she bought it fully furnished, right down to Ford’s silverware. “I look at myself as the caretaker of an American treasure,” she told AD. “I didn’t have to buy a plate,” she said, due to the original collection of china still in place, “although I’ve certainly added my fair share.”
ESTERSOHN PIETER25/25Good for gathering
Former AD design editor Howard Christian, Martha, photographer Pieter Estersohn, and former Architectural Digest editor in chief Margaret Russell pose in one of the living areas at Skylands. The home, which Martha has referred to as her “favorite place,” was decorated with gathering in mind: Friends are often found sitting by the fireplace, a games table enjoys a prominent spot in the great room, and the kitchen stools vary in height to accommodate a wide range of visitors. “Now when you take a group picture,” Martha explained of the latter feature, “everybody’s at the same level, even though they are sitting on different-size stools.”
