Alice Cole Lazarus

Alice Cole Lazarus, a longtime summer resident of Barnes Landing in Springs, died on Dec. 27 at the Alzheimer’s Resource Center in Plantsville, Conn. She was 90.

Mrs. Lazarus, who was known as Allie, first came to the South Fork with her husband, Budd Lytton, in the summer of 1947 to visit her parents, Leon (Tut) and Dorothy Cole, who were renting on Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett. Two years later, the Coles bought a summer cottage in Barnes Landing and the Lyttons bought a bungalow nearby.

They and their three children, along with her brother, Tom Cole, his wife, Connie, and their children, Jess, John, and Matthew, spent many summers together at Barnes Landing, particularly enjoying the beach. Later, Mrs. Lazarus took great joy in travel and gardening. She took her family camping across the United States twice and on a trip to Europe once, with her husband joining at intervals.

The family spent the rest of the year in Larchmont, N.Y., where she became involved in education, serving as a PTA president. In the 1960s, the Lyttons took in relatives of her parents’ housekeeper who had fled East Germany. After Mr. Lytton died in 1972, she taught kindergarten in Westchester County and later worked at the College of New Rochelle.

 In 1975, she married Robert Brill, a pathologist, and became stepmother to his three grown children. Dr. Brill died in 1981, and in 1984 she was remarried to Rudi Lazarus, a real estate broker and developer in Stamford, Conn. They settled there, although they often came to Barnes Landing. The couple shared a love of travel and visited such far-off destinations as India and the Galapagos Islands. They spent winters on Longboat Key in Florida. He died in 1996.

Mrs. Lazarus played tennis into her 80s. Locally, she was a member of the Accabonac Tennis Club. She had a subscription to the New York Philharmonic for decades, often went on Audubon expeditions, and did collages, botanical prints, and needlepoint.

“Allie was devoted to her family and an always optimistic, steadfast friend,” her family wrote. She had a loyal circle of friends, some from as far back as her youth or college, whom she raised her children with, or kept in touch with through letters and over the phone. “Their children still stay in touch,” her family said.

She was born on March 10, 1924, in New York City and grew up there and in Pelham, N.Y. After graduating from Horace Mann (which was then a private high school for girls) and Mount Holyoke College, she married Budd Lytton, a lieutenant commander in the Navy, in 1945.

Mrs. Lazarus is survived by three children from her first marriage, Rameshwar Das of Springs, Richard Lytton of Winnewood, Pa., and Laura Lytton of Cheshire, Conn., and by five granddaughters, a grandson, and a great-grandson. A sixth grandchild, Anna Mirabai Lytton, died in 2013. She also leaves stepchildren from her two subsequent marriages, Dawn Duques of New York City and Madison, Conn., Robert Brill of Boulder, Colo., and Susan Brill of Arizona, and five step-grandchildren and seven step great-grandchildren. Judy Lazarus, another stepdaughter, died before her, as did her brother, Tom Cole, and his son, Matthew.

A memorial gathering will be held in the spring. Contributions have been suggested to the Anna Mirabai Lytton Foundation, P.O. Box 625, Amagansett 11930 or the Nature Conservancy at nature.org.