Cantitoe Corners: Martha's Farm in Bedford

Martha Stewart’s move to Bedford, New York, an upscale hamlet in Westchester County, took place over a period of several years while her new property underwent major renovations. She purchased two contiguous lots (totaling 153-acres) in 2000 and, since then, has been gradually restoring and rebuilding, making new additions and refurbishing existing structures. Once called Sycamore Farms, Martha’s property was first settled in 1784 and is known locally, today, as Cantitoe Corners. (Cantitoe was the wife of an Indian chief named Katonah who lived in the region in the 1700s.) Its previous owner, Ruth Sharpe, was an eccentric millionaire who died in 1999 at the age of 95. When her family decided to sell the property, Martha knew it was where she wanted to be.

Martha’s new home is more like a small village, with a series of houses and out-buildings dotting the expansive grounds: perfect for her plans to create what she calls "a new kind of farm". Martha resides in the 1925 farm house (the Winter House), shown above – a three-story abode fronted by a long porch and dormer windows on the third level. Adjacent to the farm house is the property's original structure: a 1770 Colonial house, known as the Summer House, which is where Ms. Sharpe lived. There is also a nearby tenant’s cottage, where her daughter, Alexis, lives with her children when she is visiting. The property also contains a guest house, known as the Maple Avenue House, and a contemporary house deeper on the property. You will see photos of these below. (All photos are from TheMarthaBlog.com.)

With expansive fields and swaying sycamore trees, the property is one of the finest in the region, adjacent to the home of fashion designer Ralph Lauren. Westchester County was once famous for its Republicanism and old money. Today, however, the attitude here is decidedly casual and laid back, home to a roster of celebrities, including Richard Gere, Ryan Reynolds and wife Blake Lively, and Glenn Close. Traditional roots are still intact, however. The 1939 clock tower at Sutton Corners, for instance, is wound by hand each week by the neighbors. Many of the wealthy landowners are farmers, too, tending to their land and livestock in dirty dungarees. Old money still lives on, though: Francis Kellogg still lives in his family’s 18th Century house at Mill Pond, and Robert F. Kennedy lives there with his family, tending to the region’s pollution control and water sanitation regulations.

Martha, who adores new projects, snapped up Cantitoe Farm when it went up for sale and she immediately wrote a mission statement for the property, a manifesto of dreams, as it were, outlining all of her desires and plans for what she hopes will be her main residence from now on.

Borrowing design and homestead philosophies from the Shaker communities in New York and Maine, Martha envisioned a farm of unparalleled practicality and style. “I want to have a new kind of house, a smart house,” she told Vanity Fair in 2005. “This is going to be the future. That’s what I’m trying to do here.”

Memrie Lewis, a long-time friend of Martha’s, elaborated on Martha’s dreams in the same Vanity Fair feature. “She’s creating a magical place,” says Memrie. “Her concept is that it’s going to be a self-sufficient American farm. You never have to leave your land. She tried to do that at Turkey Hill, but it was just too small. This is the dream she’s had for a long time: to have everything you need to eat or drink – vegetables, milk, eggs, fruit, everything you can think of – right there in those acres.”

Martha is already quite close to achieving this dream.

In 2001 she hired famed architect Allan Greenberg to co-design many of the new building plans, including new garages, stables, greenhouses and barns, as well as converting a tractor garage into an entertaining room off the kitchen, which are both joined to the main house by a walk-through servery. Martha constructed a large garage and converted an old barn into a building for special projects: it contains a blogging room and a homekeeping studio on the main floor and a gym on the second floor.

What never came to fruition, however, was a 4,500 square foot house in the center of the adjacent farm field. Preliminary sketches showed a two-story structure with banks of small-pane windows, similar in style to Shaker architecture, at the end of a long pathway surrounded by wildflowers and hostas. According to an article in the New York Times about the property, Allan Greenberg says Martha envisioned three enormous rooms inside this building (each approximately 30' x 50') for entertaining large groups. The plans, however, were never carried out.

The houses that were already on the lot at the time of purchase have been completely rebuilt on their existing foundations. Martha reconfigured the layout of the Winter House to face backwards, so that its front porch looked out over the acreage rather than the road. The exteriors of the houses were done with hand-cut clapboard siding, stained gray. In fact, the entire palette of the property is gray – Bedford Gray, which became a popular paint color sold through her Martha Stewart Living paint line at the Home Depot. The color was based on an old piece of Italian stationery that Martha had in her collection. Gray stone stables, gray fencing, gray equipment buildings and gray barns dot the landscape.

The interiors have also been re-worked using shades of gray. The main kitchen in the Winter House is comprised of dyed-gray sycamore veneer cabinetry with gray lacquer trim. The cabinets and shelving were designed by architect Beth Weinstein and built by Bjork Carle Woodworking in Brooklyn. The white and gray floor was cut from stone taken from the Gordon Bunshaft house Martha once owned on Long Island. The overall effect is of serenity and monochromatic harmony. To see the interiors of the Winter House, click here.

Outdoors, she has had four miles of carriage roadways built on the property and she imported 100-year-old white cedar paddock fencing from Canada to create grazing paddocks for her five Friesen horses, also from Canada: a farm called Witteveen. Courtyards on the property are paved with cobblestones that once lined the streets of Elizabeth, New Jersey (Martha's home state) and were originally used as ballast on old wooden cargo ships.
There are more than 45,000 daffodil bulbs planted along the rock walls that line the property (45 different varieties) and thousands of new trees have been planted since her arrival, including lilac, pin-oak and linden allées. Japanese maple groves and a pinetum were also planted. There is a peony garden boasting 200 different plants and a 'boxwood room' next to the Summer House. 

In spring 2007, the host of Animal Planet's Backyard Habitat, Dave Mizejewski, designated Martha's Bedford property as a Certified Wildlife Habitat with the National Wildlife Federation. Martha encourages birds, owls and bats on the property by setting up bird houses in the woods. Enjoy the photographs of Martha's farm, below:

Martha in the stables with her horses and donkeys, all from Canada. The stables were designed and built by Allan Greenberg's firm with interiors designed and built by a British company called Loddon.

Martha's Friesen horses grazing outdoors. To keep their coats shiny and black, Martha rarely lets them out during the height of sunny summer days, since sunlight can turn their coats a reddish hue. Early mornings and evenings are the times you'll most likely see the horses outside.

The entrance to the stables. 

The stone used to build the stables was quarried in Vermont.

The greenhouse where Martha keeps her collection of tropical plants was designed and built by Allan Greenberg's firm, based on the designs of Crystal Palace, a large cast-iron and plate-glass Victorian greenhouse built in Hyde Park, London.

Martha inside the greenhouse.

Behind the greenhouse is the enormous vegetable garden. Today, the garden has been converted to Martha's cutting garden and the vegetable garden has moved closer to the chicken coops.

Martha displays her tropical plants during the summer months in the sunken garden, which connects the main Winter House to the Summer House.

The entrance to the Summer House.

The tenant cottage in the spring.

The contemporary house on the property. It is the only building that Martha has not yet renovated.

The formal parterre, leading up to the porch of the Winter House.