Peter Norton - Personal Life

Personal Life

In 1983 Norton married Eileen Harris, who grew up in Watts, California. They had two children, and lived in the Los Angeles area. In the summer of 1990 they enjoyed a visit to Martha's Vineyard and returned the following year with their children, purchasing an 1891, eight bedroom Queen Anne house in Oak Bluffs. They bought and lived in a nearby home while initiating redesign of the main house. "My children are half black, and we thought Oak Bluffs would give them an opportunity to summer around other kids like them," Norton said in a 2007 interview with Laura D. Roosevelt for Martha's Vineyard Magazine, alluding to Oak Bluff's reputation as a popular summer spot among black people.

In 2000, the couple divorced. Norton henceforth lived much of the time in New York. In February 2001, a fire caused by faulty wiring destroyed the Martha's Vineyard home, which had been restored in 1994 under the direction of the Cambridge and Nantucket architectural firm of Design Associates. Norton decided to have it rebuilt, again working with Design Associates on the reconstruction, to almost exactly as it was before the fire. Meanwhile, he began a relationship with New York financier Gwen Adams who, being an "Islander" in origin herself, also liked the area. Since then, the couple spend ten weeks of summer in the Corbin-Norton House annually, usually hosting several guests. They were married in a church in nearby Edgartown; the ceremony was performed on the island by their neighbor, author and scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr..