Sarah de Havenon-Fowler
Sarah de Havenon-Fowler of Amagansett and New York City died on Oct. 26 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue of brain cancer, her family said. She was 58. Ms. de Havenon-Fowler was the founder of French Presse Linens at Amagansett Square.
She was born in New York City on July 18, 1960, to Gaston de Havenon and Rebecca Anna-Lou de Havenon. She had five siblings. She grew up in New York City and East Hampton, where she spent weekends and vacations.
She graduated from the Buxton School in Massachusetts in 1978 and from Barnard College in Manhattan in 1982. For a time she was a freelance photographer and completed a residency program at the Maine Photographic Workshop in Rockport. After her children entered school, Ms. de Havenon-Fowler worked for a natural foods company and a fashion company.
Reflecting her love of design, she established her bedding and home goods store in Amagansett Square in 2014, first as a high-end, environmentally friendly bedding and table linens laundering service. Her highly decorated van was a regular sight on South Fork byways.
From her own experience renting houses on the South Fork, she realized there was no efficient way to get linens washed and pressed quickly enough to deal with one or two-day turnarounds. “When the house cleaners come, there’s no time to do all the sheets,” Ms. de Havenon-Fowler said in a 2015 interview with The Star.
“I realized there was a place in the market for this. The original idea was a luxury linen service, but it grew into linen management and then linen sales.” At the time, Ms. de Havenon-Fowler would drive as much as 500 miles a week to meet clients and pick up and return their linens.
She is survived by her husband, Joseph Fowler, whom she married in 1992, her sons, Dylan Fowler of Montauk, and Aidan Fowler and Ethan Fowler of New York City, and her siblings, Michael de Havenon of East Hampton and New York City, Alex de Havenon of East Hampton, David Kapell of Greenport, and Rebecca Kapell Leigh of Washington, D.C. Her parents and a brother, Andre de Havenon, died before her.
Ms. de Havenon-Fowler, a spiritual person, taught at Yoga Love in Montauk and practiced meditation.
A service was held on Saturday at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. It was followed by a paddle-out at Ditch Plain, where her ashes were cast into the pounding ocean surf.
Donations in her memory have been suggested to East End Hospice’s Kanas Center for Hospice Care, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978-7048.