Neighbors Magazine Article

Ivan Obolensky, Mary Jo Smith-Obolensky and Joanna Cook
OTOW October 2026
Written by Kay Learner

The Mapmakers of Divine Orchestration

Some lives are lived like straight, predictable highways; paved early, clearly marked, and stretching safely toward a visible horizon. Then there are the lives lived like mapmaking in the dark, where the compass is guided not by only logic, but by a quiet, persistent whisper.

For Ivan Obolensky, Mary Jo Smith-Obolensky and her daughter Joanna Cook, home was never just a physical address; it was an elusive state of grace they had to cross continents and overcome invisible borders to find.

Years ago, Ivan and Mary Jo found themselves stifled in Glendale, California. The Golden State had lost its luster, replaced by a suffocating weight of heavy taxes, a relentless, frantic pace, and endless stress. They knew, with a sudden, sharp clarity, that they had to leave.

The question was: where?

Their compass spun. They ruled out the freezing snow of the north, the humid insect-swarms of the tropics, and the distant reaches of Asia and Australia. Then came an unlikely spark. During a World Cup broadcast years earlier, a tiny nation nestled softly between the giants of Argentina and Brazil caught their attention: Uruguay.

"Uruguay made it to the quarterfinals or something, and I wondered, 'What is this little country?'" Ivan recalls with a smile. "And then we find out that they've got 4 World Cup stars and you go, 'How did that happen?' So, we began to investigate."

Mary Jo began consulting a world map late into the night, staring at the slender sliver of land on the edge of the Southern Ocean. She already had a gentle connection there: three translators she had worked with remotely for years, women she held in deep professional and personal affection. When Mary Jo casually mentioned to the ladies through text messages that Ivan and she were considering moving there, her friends sent back wide-eyed emojis.

When Ivan and Mary Jo finally stepped off the plane for a preliminary ten-day scouting trip, those three local friends staged a loving, emergency intervention over lunch. "Why are you coming here?" they asked, bewildered. "Why leave the United States?"

Mary Jo did not have an easy answer. She spoke of the temperate climate, the stable banking system, and the absence of snow. But beneath the practical logic lay something far deeper. "I can give you these reasons," Mary Jo remembers telling them, "but I really don't know. I just feel we're guided to come here." She was right. The universe was quietly orchestrating a master plan.

It was also in this quiet, windswept country where Ivan's soul finally caught its breath. After they made the move, he began to write his second novel and then completed the third in his series. He traded stress for sweeping Gothic mysteries set in a 1970s New York mansion, drawing from his own colorful ancestry, which traces back to Russian princes on one side and the historic Astor family on the other.

Meanwhile, a year after their move to Uruguay, Joanna also moved from California to Miami, both to find a place on the East Coast she could be closer in time zone to Mary Jo and Ivan, and to be near other family in Key Biscayne.

As the world ground to a halt during the pandemic, Ivan and Mary Jo, working remotely with Joanna, continue the publishing business and translation of novels, with the release of an audiobook, spinning rich, enchanting worlds out of thin air. Yet, as Ivan reflects, "No sanctuary is forever."

During their last months in Uruguay, Mary Jo required a major, complex surgery. Had she been anywhere else, the outcome might have been tragic; instead, the skilled hands of Uruguayan surgeons saved her life.

This was another reason to have gone to that country.

Having healed what they needed to heal, they felt a sudden, invigorating pull to return to the United States, and they chose Central Florida for family and business.

What followed was a series of small, breathtaking miracles that Mary Jo calls "divine orchestration." Guided by her niece, she looked into On Top of the World and coordinated with a realtor remotely to find their ideal home: she found a blue house online with soaring, open ceilings where she could see herself cooking delicious meals while staying connected to the laughter of her family. Arriving in Ocala without a home or a car, every piece fell into place as if guided by an unseen hand. When the realtor walked them through the front door of what is now their home here in On Top of the World, Mary Jo caught her breath: it was perfect. If Uruguay was the gentle medicine that healed their bodies and spirits, Ocala and OTOW became the warm soil where their roots could finally bloom.

Shortly after moving into their new neighborhood, a knock came at the door. A neighbor stood on the porch holding a small potted plant and a printed map of the immediate neighborhood, complete with everyone’s names. At a driveway get-together, another neighbor, who had walked through deep valleys of loss, looked Mary Jo in the eye and offered a piece of quiet wisdom: "Mary Jo, you just knock on any door, and they will help you. And if they don't, go to the one next to that."

For Ivan, this warm community was a revelation. "I realized that we need a social backdrop to function over the long term," he admitted. "And having a community like Ocala and On Top of the World is really spectacular."

Mary Jo and Ivan turn skygazing into a daily ritual. On warm Florida afternoons, as three o'clock thunderstorms roll in like dramatic theatrical curtains, they sit and watch the clouds shift into wild, whimsical shapes. It costs nothing, yet to them, it is the highest form of entertainment. "One of my ideas or concepts is that the world is a wondrous place," Ivan says softly, gazing out at the horizon. "And if you repeat that to yourself and look outside, it really is. You can really miss it if you're not looking." Ivan captures those skies with his cameras, focusing on the contrasts of light and shapes.

Last August, the family made a key decision to live together again, with Joanna moving up from Miami as an OTOW Relative Resident. They work together, live together, and support each other in personal and professional endeavors. Joanna loves to walk the neighborhood at twilight, taking photos and enjoying the special peace and quiet of OTOW and chatting with neighbors she meets along the way.

Today, you can often find this family at local Florida farmers' markets and craft fairs, selling Ivan’s novels. His award-winning debut novel, Eye of the Moon, is so captivating it has the reader quickly running out to acquire the entire series of the Eye of the Moon, which includes Shadow of the Son, Dark of the Earth, and the final book, which is now in progress. Ivan is also a nonfiction writer and will release his first book in that genre soon. They do not see themselves as salesmen pushing a product; they see themselves as facilitators of joy, connecting heart-to-heart with fellow book lovers. "What we realized we were missing was the contact with the reader," Mary Jo shares warmly. "Who are we doing this for? We're doing this for the reader to get a buzz out of reading. We love that contact with the public. It makes it all make sense."

They all look passersby in the eye with a warm, knowing smile, saying, "You look like an avid reader!" instantly sparking conversations that bridge the gap between strangers.

Ivan and Mary Jo have been side-by-side, 24 hours a day, for nearly two decades, not just as husband and wife, but as true companions in every sense of the word.

Looking back on the winding road that brought them from California to South America, and finally to the sunlight of Florida, Ivan marvels at the sheer improbability of it all. "I did a lot of science, so quantum mechanics is something I think of," Ivan reflects. "Particles have many different paths to take, and it depends on which probability is the highest. Well, these were really remote ideas, and how they occurred... I have no clue, but I'm very glad that they did."

They took the leap, trusted the unseen music of the universe, and found that sometimes, you have to travel to the very edge of the world just to find your way back home. And home for this family business is right here, in Ocala and On Top of the World!

Author’s Q&A

In his words

“The tale begins when I was a teenager. My father and I would meet from time to time for lunch, usually at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. One afternoon, he talked about his mother, Alice Astor, and how she had been reading a particular Egyptian Book of the Dead the night she had died. Her death had been so unusual and mysterious that he even had her New York townhouse exorcised. My grandfather had also mentioned in his autobiography, One Man in His Time, that Alice had become deeply involved with mystics and dark forces. After she divorced her fourth husband, she found herself utterly alone. What happened after, my grandfather didn’t say, but he hinted that her death was unexpected, unnecessary, and well before her time.

The story stuck with me, but what ultimately aroused my curiosity was an article in a 1997 issue of W Magazine, entitled, ‘Black Mischief’, with the subheading: ‘While researching Secret Muses, her acclaimed biography of Sir Fredrick Ashton, Julie Kavanagh unearthed the bizarre story of his patron Alice Astor. An influential heiress whose friends included Gore Vidal and Truman Capote, her last years were marked by a fascination with the occult. Did it also play a part in her death?’ The article concluded that she was likely murdered. I thought that was improbable, but the possibility was intriguing. My fiction series Eye of the Moon was the result.”

Explore the world behind the Eye of the Moon series with more of Ivan’s stories, thoughts on the occult, and family histories on his blog.

Start Your Journey

In his words

“The tale begins when I was a teenager. My father and I would meet from time to time for lunch, usually at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. One afternoon, he talked about his mother, Alice Astor, and how she had been reading a particular Egyptian Book of the Dead the night she had died. Her death had been so unusual and mysterious that he even had her New York townhouse exorcised. My grandfather had also mentioned in his autobiography, One Man in His Time, that Alice had become deeply involved with mystics and dark forces. After she divorced her fourth husband, she found herself utterly alone. What happened after, my grandfather didn’t say, but he hinted that her death was unexpected, unnecessary, and well before her time.

The story stuck with me, but what ultimately aroused my curiosity was an article in a 1997 issue of W Magazine, entitled, ‘Black Mischief’, with the subheading: ‘While researching Secret Muses, her acclaimed biography of Sir Fredrick Ashton, Julie Kavanagh unearthed the bizarre story of his patron Alice Astor. An influential heiress whose friends included Gore Vidal and Truman Capote, her last years were marked by a fascination with the occult. Did it also play a part in her death?’ The article concluded that she was likely murdered. I thought that was improbable, but the possibility was intriguing. My fiction series Eye of the Moon was the result.”