Stiletto Network

Any Way of Being a Girl Is Fine

Tribes need chiefs, and Grovers say Susan Stautberg has always embodied the spirit of Belizean Grove.

Stautberg lives on the seventh floor of a prewar building in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hill, a stone’s throw from Central Park. Visitors are ushered into a living room that is quiet, stately, and formal, decorated in pale yellow and cornflower blue, the colors of tradition. English horse prints hang above Philadelphia Queen Anne and Chippendale antiques, befitting—as Stautberg is—a descendant of Martha Washington.

Stautberg sits placidly, reflecting on her career and the history of Belizean Grove, and in the background one hears the sound of fingers on keyboards, then a whisper and a laugh. There are women working here. ...