Red Gate Farm: Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ Summer House
https://scenetherapy.com/red-gate-farm-jackie-kennedy-onassis-summer-house/
Jacqueline
Kennedy had an extensive history with residences, including one of the most
famous houses in the land, but it was Red Gate Farm that she chose to live out
the final years of her life in the beautiful Martha’s Vineyard landscapes at
the water’s edge. After forty years Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ Summer House was
finally placed on the market in 2019 by her and JFK’s daughter, Caroline. The
estate has since sold with ambitious plans ahead, here is a peek around and a
look at what’s next for the estate:
Listed by
Christie’s Real Estate in 2019 for $65 million, Red Gate Farm is located at the
tip of Martha’s Vineyard on the Aquinnah waterfront. Originally a landholding
for sheep and with only one small hunting cabin, the 350 acre estate was bought
by Jackie Kennedy Onassis in 1979. Long-time friend and landscaping maestro,
Rachel “Bunny” Mellon was enlisted to design the gardens and landscapes, while
architect Hugh Newell Jacobson was taken with created a holiday home suitable
for Jackie, her two children, and the numerous close friends who would visit
over the years. Designed in true Cape Cod style, the two-storey main house is
constructed with cedar-shingle cladding and contrasting windows, all completed
in 1981.
The main
house comprises of a formal sitting room with fireplace, a drawing room, family
room, library, dining room and chef’s kitchen form the ground floor, along with
a den, 2 offices/art studios, 2 powder rooms and a laundry room, while upstairs
comprises of four large en-suite bedrooms with the master including a dressing
room. The fifth bedroom is located on the ground floor, which also acts as a
study. There is also a guest house featuring 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living
room, kitchen and laundry room. The listing notes:
Red Gate
Farm boasts over a mile of private Atlantic Ocean beachfront with dunes, and
two freshwater ponds, as well as a vegetable garden and blueberry patch, an
outdoor pool, tennis court, and a fairy treehouse, which Ms. Onassis built for
her grandchildren. Overlooking Squibnocket Pond is the original hunting cabin.
The ancillary structures include a three-bedroom caretaker’s house, a barn, two
garages (one with a two-bedroom apartment), a temperature-controlled storage
building, and a boathouse.
It was
later reported that part of the estate had sold, off market, for $27 million –
a drop of $38 million. The buyers were The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank
Commission and the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, a pair of non-profit
organisations who plan to open stretches of the estate’s natural habitats to
the public, with the land designated for conservation. The Kennedy family chose
to keep 95 acres of the property, which include the homes, while the
non-profits purchased the existing 304 acres, which will be paid off in instalments
over the course of four years. The stretch of nature will be known as the
Squibnocket Pond Reservation and will be open to the public to enjoy the
Atlantic-fronted beaches, dunes, ponds, trails and meadows.
In a press
release, the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank
Commission, and Red Gate Farm LLC announced their agreement to ‘conserve one of
the most important and ecologically diverse habitats in New England’. “Our
family has endeavored to be worthy stewards of this magnificent and fragile
natural habitat, and its sites of cultural significance,” explained Caroline
Kennedy. “We are excited to partner with two outstanding island organizations,
and for the entire island community and the general public to experience its
beauty. We look forward to many more happy years in Aquinnah.”
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