Elaine Stimmel, a real estate agent in East Hampton for many years, died of pancreatic cancer at home in New York City on March 15. She was 82.
Ms. Stimmel began her career in real estate on the South Fork with Dayton-Halstead, moving on to Corcoran before being recruited by Saunders in 2017. She quickly became a top-producing broker here, “known not only for her keen business sense,” her family said, “but also for her warmth, wit, and unwavering loyalty,” balancing “tenacity with humility.”
“Working alongside her sister,” Diane Saatchi, who survives her, “made her career even more fulfilling, and together they were a dynamic duo in every sense — caring for each other until Elaine’s final days.”
Born in Brooklyn on Dec. 12, 1942, to Albert and Gertrude Shapiro, she met Allan Stimmel when she was 13 and he was 14. They were married seven years later.
“Their journey took them from Flushing to Chicago to New York City, then to Hong Kong, Jericho, and back to New York before settling in East Hampton” around 1989. Her husband died before her. Ms. Stimmel sold her house in East Hampton in 2022.
She was “always ready with advice,” her family said, “sometimes unsolicited, but always insightful and somehow always right.”
In addition to her sister, who lives in East Hampton Village, Ms. Stimmel is survived by two sons, Lee Stimmel of Los Angeles and his wife, Ilana, and Jon Stimmel of Pelham, N.Y., and his wife, Carrie. “Elaine’s greatest joy was her sons, and she took immense pride in their achievements, from their bar mitzvahs to their many career successes.”
Her four grandchildren, Tyler, Zachary, Brooke, and Jason, who called her Mama Elaine, also survive, as does a cousin, Barbara Goldner of Long Island.
Donations in her memory can be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network at pancan.org.
