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Zibby Owens is a busymom of four. She hosts anaward-winning, popularpodcast, “Moms Don’t HaveTime to Read Books,” onwhich she has interviewedFirst Lady and SenatorHillary Clinton, First Lady Jill Biden, singersongwriterAlicia Keys, actress NataliePortman, and hundreds of other New YorkTimes bestselling writers. She’s an authorwith a memoir, Bookends, out July 1, andshe’s launching a publishing company, ZibbyBooks, and even a podcast network.
It’s no wonder that when she andher husband, Kyle Owens, bought theirHamptons house three years ago, they boughta move-in-ready house fully furnished.
“There was another family who had beenliving there, also with small children, andwe were looking for something that didn’tneed a lot of work and we walked in and Iwas like, ‘Leave the coffee table, books —don’t touch anything, just leave it and run.’And that is literally what they did.”
The Water Mill property holds a tenniscourt, a must since her husband is a formertennis pro. “That was the number one thingthat we insisted on having at a house,” sheexplains.
When they bought the home, the couplehad been renting around the corner andliked the neighborhood. The beach beingclose by and her brother living bikingdistance away are definite benefits.
The podcaster has been coming to theHamptons since 1979. Until she was 2 or 3,her family rented in Pound Ridge, but everysummer since, they have made a home onthe East End. Her parents soon built a housein East Hampton. (Her father is billionairebusinessman and philanthropist Stephen A.Schwarzman.)
When Owens and her second husbandwere on a house hunt, there were a few othermust-haves, as well, and this home fit the bill.
“I have four kids, so I wanted each kidto have their own room and also to haveroom for friends and family to come, stay,help out and all of that. I really wanted allthe bedrooms, all the kids’ bedrooms to beon the same floor as my bedroom because Ithink my kids come in in the middle of thenight more than any other kids in the world— still to this day,” she says.
The outdoor space was important too.“We wanted to have a pool and room for apickup baseball game in the backyard,” shecontinues.
Her family ends up spending a lot of timeon the trampoline as it’s an activity all ofher children — the 15-year-old twins, asoon-to-be 9-year-old and a 7-year-old —can all do together. “I think we spend moretime on the trampoline than in the pool,”she says. “I feel like that was my major modeof exercise throughout the pandemic andit’s not bad at all.”
She loves that the large home affordseveryone their own space, but also lendsitself to gathering as a family. Her kitchenopens into the living room, which is nextto what she describes as “a hangout spacewhere we play board games and the kidshave all their toys. So we’re all generallytogether, which is really important to me.”
“I must say the walls are not thick in thishouse at all,” she says with a laugh. “I knowwhen someone is taking a shower fromanywhere in the house, but I like knowingthat I can hear, that I can yell and talk toanybody at any point and . . . nobody’s off, intheir own wing.”
When the pandemic hit in 2020, theyretreated from the city to Water Mill, fromMarch until September 2020 when schoolbegan, again. “My gosh, we were so lucky.I don’t take it for granted for a minute. Wewere so lucky to have it.”
Her home in the Hamptons is traditionaland comfortable. “My home in New Yorkis very colorful,” she says, but this homealready had more neutral tones, “which isnot something I generally gravitate towards,but it just kind of works.”
“Then over the pandemic, I let the kidsall redo their rooms,” she exclaims. Thechildren wanted their space to reflect theirown styles.
“My younger son has like a great eye. . . .He’s only 7. I’m ready to have him redo thewhole house!” she says. At first, she wasn’tso sure. “I’m like, ‘Really? You think thisbright orange carpet is going to go withbright green walls?’ And he’s like, ‘Trust me.’And then it ends up looking great. So whoknows?”
At first, she felt it was unnecessary, butwith not much else to do, she relented aslong as they stuck to a reasonable budget. “Ilet them do it and now they love it and takesuch ownership of their own spaces,” shesays of the final results.
She and her 15-year-old daughter spenttwo days putting up wallpaper they boughton Amazon — “which I’ve never recoveredfrom” — and string lights. “We went to TJMaxx in the Bridgehampton Commonsand bought new bedding and fun towels,”she says, adding they ordered rugs fromOverstock and Wayfair.
When the pandemic hit, she had alreadybeen doing her podcast for two years andwas well-known as “a book-fluencer.” By2019 she had 200 podcasts under her belt,which had been downloaded more than onemillion times.
That March, though, “The day after wegot there, I was in my parka jumping onthe trampoline with the kids and I wasjust thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what is gonnahappen with all of the book releases that arecoming out?’”
She says she was “very much tapped into‘pub day’ and what it meant for books tocome out and all of that.” She wanted to dosomething to help. “So I decided thatnext morning that I was going to havean Instagram Live show and anybody whowanted to come on, I would just have them on.”
She carved out an office space in a guestbedroom as she ramped up her podcasts todaily episodes, in addition to live shows.
“Every day from 11 to 12, I would interviewauthors live, back when Instagram Livewas the place to be. I got to know a lot ofpeople, even though it was only 10-minuteinterviews. I developed this wholecommunity of people who would lookforward to that as their one piece ofstructure to the day. Certainly, it was mypiece of structure to the day!”
She also started a virtual book clubduring the pandemic and launched anonline literary magazine, We Found Time,that features essays written by the authorson her podcast. A book called, Moms Don’tHave Time To: A Quarantine Anthology wasreleased in February 2021.
How did she do all that while the kids werehome during the pandemic? “My husbandwas so helpful — it’s insane. And, he’s thekids’ stepdad and he cooked all our meals, thewhole pandemic. He watched the kids while Idid my Instagram live show and my podcastand I could not have done it without him.”
Her husband was going through anespecially hard time. He sadly lost hismother and grandmother to COVID in latesummer 2020.
The couple started a nonprofit, TheSusan Felice Owens Program for COVID-19Vaccine Research at Mount Sinai HealthSystem, to honor his mother, along withhis grandmother, Marie “Nene” Felice. Evenwith vaccines approved, the center is stilldoing research and they’ve come up with asingle-dose vaccine, administered throughthe nose, that doesn’t need to be kept cold,according to Owens.
“It’s hopefully going to be used still fordeveloping countries,” she says.
Owens’ upcoming memoir, Bookends: AMemoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, is abouther journey to find her voice and rewriteher story. Appearances are planned for thesummer. She will be the featured authorat Hampton Library’s Fridays at Five inBridgehampton on August 12 and she will beunder the tent for East Hampton Library’sAuthors Night on August 13.
In addition, her first children’s book,Princess Charming, a modern take on aprincess character filled with a lot of girlpower, was released in April to rave reviews.
How does she juggle it all? “It is sort of amystery to me as well,” she says. “One is thatI do things very quickly, I write very quickly.I prepare, I guess, quickly. I read reallyquickly. I’ve taught myself also how to speedread essentially.”
There are also weekends that her childrenare with their father. “I do a lot of stuff then.”
She also just launched a publishingcompany with books coming out starting inJanuary of 2023.
“I have a 14-person team who helpsnot just do everything needed for thepublishing company, but for all the brandoffshoots I’ve launched and I could not doit without all of them. I’m not alone in thisecosystem.”
When there is downtime, it’s family timeat home that she looks forward to and itinvolves one of her two favorite spots — acouch in the living room.
“It’s super comfy and I basically live onthat couch. I’m reading, I’m working therewith my laptop, I’m sitting there while thekids watch TV,” she says. “My husband mightbe cooking behind me and the kids might beplaying in the next room or right there. It’ssort of in the center of the action.”
The other space? “I have to say, I love mylaundry room. I spend a lot of time in there.We have two washers and two dryers, whichI am very excited about. I’ve even had themgo out and I’ve figured out how to fix them acouple of times myself!”
This article appeared in the July 2022 edition of Behind The Hedges. Read the full digital edition here.Read previous “At Home in the Hamptons” features here.
