Teresa Carlin Kratzman of Augie’s Path in East Hampton, an executive and philanthropist who was passionate about education, died on March 18 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. She was 59.
She was proud of her Irish and Polish immigrant heritage, her family said, and was the first in her family to attend college. She loved the water and the allure of oceans near and far, and cherished walking at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett. “With much given, much is expected” was her motto, resolute in her belief that the best days are always ahead. She lived and loved life fully and selflessly, her family said, and her children were her greatest joy.
Teresa Carlin was born on May 8, 1963, in the Bronx to Brendan Carlin and the former Anita Strypek. She grew up in there and in Westchester County, and enjoyed summers in Montauk with her grandfather, John Strypek, a fisherman.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in international economics from Iona University in New Rochelle, and later an M.B.A. from New York University. From the late 1980s to 1994, she was in senior management in sales and trading at the Wall Street firms Drexel Burnham Lambert and Westpac.
She and E.A. Kratzman III were married in 1995, and had two children. She lived in Rowayton and Darien in Connecticut from 1995 to 2003, and in Greenwich, Conn., from 2003 to 2019. She spent summers in East Hampton starting in 2016, becoming a year-round resident in 2020.
In 2016, she became president of the luxury real estate design firm Iconic Modern Home, helping to grow the startup into an Inc. 5000 business — a ranking of companies by revenue growth — and a leading enterprise across New York City, Connecticut, and South Florida. She was a fixture of the South Fork’s luxury real estate building and design industry, worked as a business development consultant for luxury brands and media enterprises, and had a tireless work ethic and reputation for excellence that were known and valued, her family wrote. She was a philanthropic leader and fund-raising juggernaut for schools, charities, and community, primarily supporting her children’s schools, Sacred Heart Greenwich and Brown University.
She is survived by her children, Reid Secondo of New York City and Sloane Kratzman of Paris. Her mother, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., also survives, as do her siblings, Joan Halpern of Eastchester, N.Y., and Michael Carlin of Miami, her nephew, Grant Halpern of Eastchester, and many relatives, friends, and colleagues.
Ms. Kratzman was cremated. A celebration of her life will be held in New York City during the spring.
“Teresa believed in the power of education to unleash potential and strove to promote educational access,” Ms. Kratzman’s family wrote. They have suggested contributions in her honor to support first-generation students at Brown University by denoting gifts to FirstGen@Brown at bit.ly/3JQU5tb, or Brown University, Gift Cashier, Box 1877, Providence, R.I. 02912.
