Shelter Island Profile: Stephanie Sareyani

Toward the end of a Reporter interview, Stephanie Sareyani, who retired as art teacher at the Shelter Island School in 2019, wanted to set the record straight: “I’m sure at some point somebody will tell you I set the school on fire a couple of times …”

If Ms. Sareyani set any fires, it was in the hearts of her students, who gave her the moniker, Mother Art. For almost three decades, she encouraged the creativity and imagination of generations of Shelter Island’s children by teaching them to make and appreciate art.

By her own telling, a test kiln threw a spark that fell into a rack of tissue paper. Fifteen minutes later three fire trucks were parked on the front lawn of the school just as parents arrived for dismissal. Superintendent Sharon Clifford was passing the art room a minute later as three firemen in complete gear, holding axes, ran in ready to start smashing things.

Superintendent Clifford and Stephanie emerged from the school building with Ms. Clifford comforting Stephanie as she sobbed. And once Stephanie agreed to study the correct use of a fire extinguisher and teach a seminar on the subject to her colleagues at school, all was forgiven.

Stephanie was born in Elmhurst, Queens, a neighborhood known for its proximity to the Elmhurst Tanks, huge metal receptacles that were once used to store natural gas. “I could see them from my bedroom window,” she remembered.

She went to school at St. Bartholomew Catholic Academy, and her family started coming to Shelter Island on vacation when she was 9. As a teen, she waitressed at the Peconic Lodge, a one-time bungalow hotel that is now the Perlman Music Program (PMP).  Touring PMP a few years ago, she asked if the hired help still lives above the kitchen. She was told, “Stephanie, the squirrels live above the kitchen.”

Another summer she worked at The Dering Harbor Inn where the Sunday all-you-could-eat buffets drew good-tipping, elderly diners by the busload. “We would serve 100 lobster tails. The cash was coming out of our greasy pockets.”

Coming from Queens and working the Island summers made Stephanie want to live here forever. “When we came back for the summer, people greeted us as if we were their friends,” she said. “And I thought, ‘Oh, wow,’ this is very different than where I live. People were recognizing me, and reaching out, and I thought wow, this place is amazing.”

In 1981, Stephanie joined the crew of a sailboat, one of two boats built by a father/daughter team on an Atlantic crossing to the Azores. The boats left Block Island and arrived within hours of one another after a 15-day crossing. The trip was a mission to help local people rebuild damaged homes, but was only partly successful since the sight of the sailors in shorts and bare shoulders was unacceptable to the local people. Stephanie finally made it back to Shelter Island, where her friend Kathy O’Malley, a local girl, let Stephanie sleep on her couch until she found a place.

“I just knew from the time I was little that I wanted to come here, and be the art teacher,” said Stephanie. “My father said: ‘People retire there, people vacation there, they don’t live there.’ And I thought, ‘Well, I think you’re wrong.’ But I never said that out loud because I wasn’t that kind of a kid.”

She made inquiries at the Shelter Island School, but they had a very good art teacher already, who they expected would stay for a while. Stephanie took a job at the Maycroft School in Sag Harbor as a nursery schoolteacher. She met and married John Needham, who owns and manages Coecles Harbor Marina, and they had two children, Catherine and Emily.  After seven years of marriage, Stephanie and John decided on an amicable divorce.

During her school years, it became clear her perception of written words and numbers was different from other people’s. She had compensated all her life by developing her artistic skills, avoiding standardized tests, staying away from jobs that required alphabetizing or algebra, and driving herself to get into The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), one of the premier colleges for art. It took a professor at RISD, who had seen cases like hers before, to help her understand why she struggled with reading, writing and mathematics. “I have dyslexia like nobody’s business,” she said.

Later in life, she asked a doctor how she should think about her dyslexia. “He told me, ‘You graduated with honors. You have your dream job, and a beautiful family. Think of your brain as a baseball team. You just won the World Series, but you have a really bad shortstop.’”

In 1991, Stephanie learned that Carol Wilson, the art teacher at the Shelter Island School for 20 years, was retiring. Stephanie got the job she had been dreaming of since childhood. She also got some advice from Carol. “She told me, ‘Go to your conferences. You need colleagues all over New York State because here, you’re a one-woman show, and you can’t think outside the box if you don’t expose yourself to new ideas.’” 

On a Sunday in 2000, Stephanie and her 15-year-old daughter Emily drove over to the site of a house they were building, to see how the framing was going. Out walked local contractor Dexter Sareyani with a yellow pad in his hands, and a gleam in his eye.

“We chatted for a little while, and when I got back in the car, Emily said, ‘Ugh, you’re going to marry him,’” Stephanie said. “I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ and Emily said, ‘Mom you have that look.’”

Six months later, they were engaged, and the house Dexter built for Stephanie was their home for 24 years.

Dexter and Stephanie went to Costco every Sunday, and one day he said, “Let’s get a cheesecake.”

Stephanie said, “We’re not getting a cheesecake.”

Dexter parried, “What if I share it with John? Can we get a cheesecake?”

They bought the cheesecake and John Needham came over. The two of them were sitting at the dining table eating cheesecake at four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon as Stephanie’s five-year-old granddaughter Valerie came in saying, “Oh, look, Mommy, Grandma’s got both of her husbands at the table eating cheesecake.”

Dexter passed away in 2025 after an illness that left the family devastated. “I trusted that people in my community, that I knew I had cared for, could care for me, and I accepted help,” Stephanie said, remembering the kindness and love the Shelter Island community gave her. “I remember coming home from the hospital once. I got on the South Ferry. I was numb. I felt like that on purpose because God forbid you should feel, you’d have to cry one more time. And a young man came to the window, and I put it down, and he said, ‘Welcome home.’”

Lightining Round — Stephanie Sareyani

What do you always have with you? Pictures of my kids.

Favorite place on Shelter Island? Wades Beach.

When was the last time you were elated? This morning when I was taking care of my 15-month-old granddaughter Florence.

What exasperates you? When I hear parents being mean to their children.

When was the last time you were afraid? The last time I drove on a highway.

What is the best day of the year on Shelter Island? Memorial Day.

Favorite movie and book? ‘Out of Africa,’ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.

Favorite food? Chocolate.

Favorite person, living or dead, who is not a member of the family? Mr. Rogers.

Most respected public figure? Caroline Kennedy.