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.”

Read more about the Squibnocket Pond Reservation and see future plans at the website’s press release page here, or view the original listing and more of its expansive landscapes at Christie’s webpage here. You can see all the images of this house in the Jackie Kennedy’s Red Gate Farm, Martha’s Vineyard Pinterest board.

images: google maps