A Jamaican Adventure: The End of my Marriage

By: Baron Stewart

Even though I stayed in the Bronx with my mother while working in Rockland County, I lived 100 miles away in Stony Brook. It quickly became clear to me and everyone around me that I needed to find a place to live closer to work.

David Brown, the mathematics department chairman, generously offered me a place to stay with his family. However, there was one condition: I had to come alone. There wasn’t enough space for my wife, Lennette. After discussing it, Lennette and I agreed to this arrangement. She moved in with her mother in Brooklyn, while I went to live with David, his wife, and their young son, who attended RCDS in Rockland. We decided that I would visit Lennette on weekends.

However, this agreement was complicated by my need to travel to Stony Brook on Fridays to meet with professors and continue my studies. This arrangement turned my marriage into a one-day-a-week affair—more of an obligation than a pleasure. I had no real home. During the week, I was a guest at David’s house. On Friday nights, I stayed with Carol and Leslie, my old Stony Brook housemates. I spent. Saturday nights and Sunday mornings with Lennette at her mother’s house—an experience that became the most challenging part of my week.

I began to stray. At Stony Brook, many new and exciting women comforted my wandering soul. Meanwhile, at RCDS, Ruth Goode, the history teacher, invited me to dinner one evening. She mentioned that she had a friend on the RCDS board who might have a place where Lennette and I could live.

That friend was Cipe Pineles Burtin, a distinguished figure in the art world. She had been married to two giants of the design industry—Bill Golden, the former Art Director of CBS Television, and Will Burtin, a member of the Art Directors Hall of Fame. Cipe lived alone in a three-story brick mansion on 18 acres of wooded land, nestled off a private road near the Don Bosco Shrine in Stony Point, New York.

 It was near dusk when Lennette and I drove up the long driveway and saw a short, white woman kneeling in her garden. She looked up, pleasant but cautious. This was Cipe Pineles Burtin.

Cipe had two cats, and she wanted someone in the house to feed them when she stayed in her apartment on 10th Street in New York or when she was teaching at Parsons School of Design. She showed us around her home, and I was immediately captivated. The house had soaring 10-foot ceilings, massive windows that flooded the rooms with light, two fireplaces in the living room, another in the dining room, and even a non-working one in the kitchen.

Cipe lived on the second floor, while the third floor would be ours—a private space with a living room, bedroom, and bathroom. Everything was provided, but there was one condition: she didn’t want us to bring furniture. It was her home, and she tried to keep it as it was.

Despite her generous offer, she wasn’t entirely convinced about sharing her space with us. She asked us to wait until after the summer, agreeing to let us move in on a trial basis to see how things worked out.

I was eager to go, but Lennette hesitated. It was yet another unfamiliar environment for her, and she wasn’t sure about storing all our belongings. Ultimately, she never had to make that decision—by the end of the summer, I had stayed in Stony Brook too long. Lennette was furious. She gave me an ultimatum, and I accepted it.

We separated. And I moved into Cipe’s house alone.

Lennette and I had very different feelings about living apart. She wanted to be married—I did not. I had agreed to our marriage out of a sense of duty when she told me she was pregnant, but in truth, my heart was never entirely in it. I decided to stay, but it was more about keeping my word than love. Lennette did nothing to drive me away; she was a loyal and faithful wife. But at that point in my life, I did not want to be married.

Our relationship was built on obligation, though I believe Lennette truly loved me. I came to Brooklyn every weekend, but permanently later than she wanted. One Sunday afternoon, I arrived late again, and she was visibly upset. She looked at me and said, “If you come here late again, don’t return.”

I never did.

Not long after, Lennette sent boxes of my clothes to the school, and while I was teaching, she took our car and drove away one afternoon. That was the end of our marriage. It was a bad situation—we should never have married.  We never reconciled our situation, but time softened everything. After many years, we became friends. Lennette remarried and had three children. Last summer, after forty years, I went to see her. Today, we share a good friendship, one unburdened by the weight of the past.

At the time, my priority was my studies. I needed to be at Stony Brook every weekend for classes with my professors as I worked toward my PhD. I had every intention of finishing my degree.

Moving into Cipe’s house gave me something I hadn’t had since leaving Jamaica—a proper home. I lived there for nine years and had extraordinary experiences. In many ways, living with Cipe was like attending finishing school. She became my surrogate mother, and I became the son she had always wanted. She did have a son, Tom, but he was off doing everything she despised.

Cipe taught me how to cook, enjoy elegant cocktail parties, and embrace the world with curiosity and sophistication. She was an extraordinary woman—an Austrian immigrant with two sisters, a respected teacher at Parsons School of Design, and a former art director for Seventeen and Vogue magazines.

My routine became much easier now that I lived in Rockland County. There were no more exhausting trips back and forth to the Bronx or Brooklyn, and I had my own space for the first time in years.

I do not regret how things turned out, but I did feel lonely in that grand mansion. For all the space and freedom, I missed the companionship I had taken for granted with Lennette. Through it all, I learned one of the most important lessons of my life: the small decisions we make can shape our lives for a long time.

There’s much more to tell about my time with Cipe—how our relationship evolved, her lessons, and our adventures. But I’ll save those stories for later.