Bernadette Sullivan Costanzo Dies September 25

Bernadette Sullivan Costanzo died of a stroke at Stony Brook University Hospital on September 25, 2018, after a six-week hospital stay. She was 73.

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on April 17, 1945, to Edward Thomas Sullivan and Sara McCarthy Sullivan, she grew up in Union and Maplewood, New Jersey, attended Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston University. She went on to earn a master’s degree in early childhood special education from Bank Street College of Education in New York, and in her early career taught English as a second language in Mexico and at Montessori School in Milburn, New Jersey.

In the 1960s and 1970s, she was based in Miami and later New York and flew for Pan American Airlines and was a chief purser for her crew. After her daughter Gabrielle was born in 1975, she left her glamorous job to raise her daughter and son, Kai. In 1996, she bought the Montauk Beach Store on Main Street. Her son Kai worked with her and launched the Kai-Kai Sandal brand, for which the store is now named. In 2011 her family purchased the historic Inn at Old Harbor on Block Island.

Her husband, Conrad J. Costanzo, introduced her to Montauk. In February 1970, they drove from Manhattan to have a picnic lunch in the dunes along Old Montauk Highway, near the Surfside Inn. Mr. Constanzo proposed, and her answer was “when?!” They married in Manhattan on September 20, 1970, and this year celebrated their 48th anniversary. The couple lived in Manhattan, Port Washington, and Maplewood, and bought their first home on Seaview Avenue in Montauk in 1972. They spent summers in Montauk until 1993 when they moved full-time to Surfside Avenue.

Ms. Costanzo was an early Friend of the Montauk Library, upon its opening; she served on the Montauk Village Association as the scholarship director and was an active officer in Surfside Estates Association. She was a parishioner at St. Therese of Lisieux in Montauk. Her lifelong interests included cooking, traveling, needlepoint and reading. She also enjoyed spending winters in Playas del Coco, Costa Rica.

In 2000, she was diagnosed with hemochromatosis (which causes the body to absorb too much iron), and she required a liver transplant. The Montauk community rallied support for her with more than 50 Montauk friends going to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan to attend a special hearing and more than 100 local residents sent faxes to convince the medical board to grant her a liver transplant. They were victorious, and in May 2000, she received a liver transplant and gained 18 years in Montauk with her husband, watching son Kai grow his Kai-Kai Sandal business, and daughter Gabrielle marry and welcome two grandchildren, Bennett, 4, and Grant, 2.

An oceanfront wake, planned by her son Kai, was held on September 30 at her home overlooking the ocean. Father Tom Murphy officiated at her funeral Mass on October 1. Interment will be at Fort Hill Cemetery, Montauk. The family urges friends to become an organ donor or donate to DonateLife.net.