No Decorating For A While

By Simon Crittle/New York

Coming out of the courthouse last week, Martha Stewart put on a brave face, smiling for the cameras before ducking into her black SUV. But if her appeal process is exhausted, Stewart's new life will be no cakewalk. She will most probably spend her five-month sentence at a minimum-security "prison farm" in Danbury, Conn., just 20 miles from her home in Westport. Like other inmates at the facility, where hotel queen Leona Helmsley served time for tax evasion, Stewart will wear a khaki uniform and black, steel-toed shoes and work 7 1/2 hours a day for about 12-c- an hour. "I'm used to all kinds of hard work," Stewart said. "I'm not afraid whatsoever."

She may need that courage. At Danbury, Stewart will have none of the creature comforts that she touts to her fans and customers. She will probably be strip-searched on arrival. There will be no Egyptian-cotton sheets for the bed in her cell and no color-coordinated accessories. Inmates are allowed nothing more than wedding bands, religious medals and prescription eyeglasses, and they are not permitted to decorate the concrete walls.

But Stewart may be able to employ some of her homemaking skills. She could be put on food service or groundskeeping. "I think she'll make the five months in prison a major life experience," says society columnist Dominick Dunne, a friend. "She's not going to sit and mope for five months. I bet she leaves that prison a very popular woman."

The five months of house arrest--which Stewart chose to serve at her 153-acre, $15 million estate in Bedford, N.Y., a working farm where her neighbors include Ralph Lauren, George Soros and Glenn Close--will be more to her liking. After all, she has been remodeling, and she will be free to conduct business and see visitors (lavish dinner parties included). Stewart can use that time to plan her return. She issued this promise on the courthouse steps: "I'll be back. I will be back."

--By Simon Crittle/New York