Sandy Lerner profiled in NY Times
Sandy Lerner, a founder of Cisco Systems and lover of all things Jane, is profiled in the New York Times.
She left Cisco in 1990, and has spent her time pursuing eclectic interests since then:
[Lerner] started and sold a cosmetics company (Urban Decay), read Jane Austen compulsively, schooled herself in the ways of Colonial farming, studied the history of costume, made period ball gowns, collected books on 18th-century typography and perfected her Regency dancing. “I can dance in five centuries and two sexes,” she said.
Apparently, she is vehemently opposed to solitary dining:
In 2001 she opened a pub in Upperville, in the vein of those found in the English countryside, where she has a home that belonged to a brother of Jane Austen. “I like the custom in England of going into a tavern by yourself, sitting down, having dinner, meeting people,” said Ms. Lerner, who has made no profit from her pub. “As opposed to eating at home by yourself in front of the TV and turning into Jeffrey Dahmer.”
Ms. Lerner is largely responsible for the preservation of Chawton House Library, for which we are ever grateful.
