Ellen G. Fine of Fine Design

Ellen G. Fine, who after a successful career at Bloomingdale’s developed nine home furnishings and women’s clothing stores called Fine Design, one of which was on Newtown Lane in East Hampton, died unexpectedly of an aortic dissection on June 7 at her Manhattan office. A resident of Manhattan and East Hampton, she was 70 years old.

Ms. Fine began at Bloomingdale’s in New York City as a furniture buyer in 1973 and rose to become a regional manager. She started Fine Design on a pushcart at Manhattan’s South Street Seaport in 1986, selling hand-knit and cotton sweaters. With help from contacts at Bloomingdale’s, she expanded her business and soon opened her first shop in the Chelsea neighborhood. Her Newtown Lane shop was her third and her favorite, Elizabeth Fine of New York City, a daughter, said.

“She used to have this big summer sale in August, and people would line up around the block,” Elizabeth Fine recalled. “She was Ralph Lauren before there was Ralph Lauren. She loved keeping her store open year round and decorating it for Christmas. It was important for her to be seen as a local business.”

Fine Design had stores in Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., before they closed in 1993 as the economy slowed. Ms. Fine later became a financial adviser with Janney Montgomery Scott, where she was a vice president of investments at the time of her death. Elizabeth Fine said her mother “was breaking glass ceilings before it was popular.”

She was born on July 12, 1945, in Pittsburgh to John C.S. Ginder and the former Jean Buttermore. She grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, and attended Cardinal Mooney High School there, graduating in 1963. She moved to Boston in 1965 after visiting friends in Provincetown and taking a liking to Massachusetts. She later moved to New York City and, in 1982, received a bachelor’s degree from Marymount Manhattan College.

 A brief first marriage ended in divorce. She and Sidney L. Weinberg, who had met through her position at Bloomingdale’s, were married in 1979. Friends soon introduced them to the East End, where they became frequent visitors, and they bought a house in Northwest Woods about 30 years ago. Mr. Weinberg died in 2004.

Ms. Fine loved gardening, going to restaurants, art exhibitions, and to the beach, even in winter. She enjoyed entertaining and staged an annual clambake. She also enjoyed painting, spending time each summer at the Art Barge in Napeague. Her work included landscapes, houses, and flowers, among other subjects.

In addition to her daughter Elizabeth, Andrew Fine, a son, and Jean Weinberg, her youngest daughter, both of whom live in New York City, survive, as do six grandchildren. She also is survived by four siblings, Mary Ginder of Colorado, Richard Ginder of Florida, Don Ginder of North Carolina, and John Ginder of North Carolina.

A member of St. Jean the Baptiste Catholic Church in New York City, she was buried on June 11 at Most Holy Trinity Cemetery in East Hampton. Her family said she would be remembered as a “beloved matriarch, tenacious businesswoman, cherished friend, mother, sister, and aunt.”