Mary Stuart Masterson, an actress, director, producer, and mother of four, wears many hats in her personal life and on the big screen. Her father, actor, and director Peter Masterson gave her a head start in the field.
Mary Stuart Masterson did, however, disclose to The New York Times in 2017 that she had one foot out the door when it came to Hollywood. And, unlike many of her friends, Masterson has moved away from the pace and bustle of city life.
Life in the Countryside by Mary Stuart Masterson
It’s been nearly nine years since the multi-faceted artist abandoned the cityscape of Brooklyn to embrace life in the country. However, the actress has been reticent to divulge the specific place she has decided to call home—an intended stumbling block to dissuade enthusiastic fans from camping out on her doorstep.
The only suggestion anyone has of her current whereabouts is that it is a three-hour trip from crowded New York City, which is a long distance to search for a single address.
She relocated there with her third husband, actor Jeremy Davidson, and their four children, ages 8 to 11, inspired by the now-common urban fantasy of living off the land.
Mary Stuart Masterson (Pinterest)Masterson schooled herself to better prepare for her move to the nation. She discovered how to nurture seedlings in a cold frame. She was also capable of dehydrating and canning edibles.
She soon realized, however, that her efforts alone would not be enough to support her four children and marriage.
A Bug for Agriculture
For Masterson and her family of six, living in the tiny, ramshackle home was more about being part of a community and having that social connection than it was about self-sufficiency.
Nonetheless, Masterson has been cultivating a variety of vegetables in her backyard, including grapes and spotted trout lettuce. While homegrown vegetables may sound tempting to city dwellers, kids are still kids. They’d rather have a bowl of borscht than eat vegetables.
Masterson, who plays Idgie Threadgoode in Fried Green Tomatoes, also has two beehives on her 14-acre home. It’s safe to say that the spouse and kids never run out of honey.
Mary Stuart Masterson (Pinterest)Mary Stuart Masterson: A Believer in Giving Back
Her commitment to being deeply and actively involved in the fabric of her community was another trait she shared with her much-loved “bee charmer” character.
During her stay in Hudson Valley, New York, Masterson founded four businesses that work together to pave the way for people interested in jobs in film and television crew production. She told Southern Living, ”
The plan was to build a new media ecosystem for the Hudson Valley to serve as a new economic engine when IBM closed its doors in the late 1990s and those 30,000 jobs were never restored.
Her list of businesses includes the non-profit Stockade Works, Up River Studios, and Stockade Studios, a production company. As if that weren’t enough, she and her husband founded the Storyhorse Documentary Theater in the Hudson Valley.