This wasn’t your typical yard sale. Last month more than 1,500 people traveled to Martha Stewart‘s Katonah farm (about 50 miles from New York City) hoping to snag a treasure from the lifestyle guru’s collection. The event and its preparation can be seen in Wednesday’s hour-long special “The Great American Tag Sale with Martha Stewart” (ABC8 EDT/PDT).
Stewart, 80, describes the ordeal as “very, very difficult” to pull off. “Not only does everything have to be chosen to put in the sale, it also had to be cleaned, placed carefully, had to be packed unpacked, had to be priced, had to be displayed in an appropriate and nice fashion, had to be moved from a distance,” she tells USA TODAY. “And my farm is pretty big, 150-something acres. So from one place to another, everything had to be moved to the tents. It was a huge undertaking.”
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The sale of her East Hampton estate and closure of a Manhattan office left Stewart with thousands of extra items. Objects from her homes de ella, and props used in shoots for her books and magazine went into the April 22-24 sale that benefitted The Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai Hospital. Stewart said the sale raised more than $800,000.
“It was a lot of beautiful glassware, a lot of beautiful dishes, a lot of beautiful furniture,” she says of the assortment, which also included rugs, mirrors, books, artwork, and outdoor furniture. Stewart says it wasn’t difficult to part with her belongings,. “A couple things passed by me with some without my paying attention,” she admits, “like my two beautiful garden carts.” But Stewart is delighted that the carts bring their new owner so much happiness.
Attendees traveled from across the country, from as far away as Texas, Stewart says.
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Some famous faces also shopped the sale, including Stewart’s friend whom she had helped with her wedding, Blake Lively. She “bought a lot of stuff, lots of Fire King and jadeite,” says Stewart. “Jimmy Fallon sent his decorator, who bought beds for a new bunkbed room that they’re making. These are beautiful spool beds, and she couldn’t wait to show him. She was so happy with five spool beds.”
“The View“Co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin attended. Kris Jenner appears in the special via FaceTime and had a representative shop for her. “They bought a lot of holiday things and sent them back to California,” Stewart says.
Stewart says she and reality TV’s royal family “met years ago” and often attend the same events. But she wouldn’t describe them as “close friends.” Stewart says she interviewed the family for kim kardashian‘s entry on Time’s 2015 list of The 100 Most Influential Peoplein which Stewart wondered if Chris Jenner and her children were “today’s Brady Bunch.”
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“Kris and I are both strong mothers with a lot of entrepreneurial initiative, and it’s been fun comparing lives,” says Stewart. “I just interviewed her for my new podcast, which is coming out in June. Ella She’s lovely and talkative and the girls are all very interesting, each in their way ..”
Stewart is also friendly with Kim’s new beau, comedian Pete Davidsonquien ended an 8-season “Saturday Night Live” run over the weekend. They met at Comedy Central’s 2015 roast of Justin Bieber, where Stewart and Davidson zinged the young singer. Stewart remembers Davidson “was so cute then,” having recently started on “SNL.” “He was a charming boy.”
When asked about Davidson’s appeal, she says, “There are bad boys and there are good boys, and he’s a good boy.”
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. Davidson is “quiet and gawky and cute,” says Stewart, who posed with Davidson and Kim at April’s White House Correspondents’ Dinnerin a photo Stewart shared to Instagram.
“They seem nice together,” she says of the couple. “They really do.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism