LONDON — Martha’s Vineyard, an island where Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis fled as a safe haven in the late ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, was struck by tragedy a few years after her own death but has remained a focal point for family moments, and a portrait of the family’s influential style during their summer vacation, located off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
In 1979, Onassis paid $1 million for a 340-acre estate in Martha’s Vineyard with miles of private beach, also known as Red Gate Farm. She commissioned architect Hugh Newel Jacbosen to design a Cape Cod-style main house adjacent to a two-story guest house. Socialite Rachel “Bunny” Mellon was commissioned to landscape the property.
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Caroline Kennedy’s wedding at Red Gate Farm
After Onassis’ death, Red Gate Farm was inherited in 1994 by her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, who married Edwin Schlossberg on Martha’s Vineyard in 1986. The bride wore Carolina Herrera, just like her mother.
Caroline’s Kennedy’s dress was made of white silk organza with a round neckline, short sleeves, a dropped waist and a 25-foot train. The bodice of the dress was covered with hundreds of embroidered white shamrocks and a four-leaf clover for good luck. The shamrocks were also featured on the hem of the dress.
Onassis wore a light green dress with high shoulder pads and long sleeves paired with long white gloves to the wedding. Her minimal ensemble was completed with a pair of flower earrings.
The bridesmaids, including Courtney Kennedy Ruhe and Sydney Lawford McKelvy, wore lilac floral print Greek-inspired dresses to match their flower crowns. Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger was matron of honor.
Caroline’s brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., was the groom’s best man.
Kennedy style at Red Gate Farm
The British royal family takes off their tiaras and gowns at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, while the American royal family, the Kennedys, lets their hair down in Martha’s Vineyard. It’s where Onassis traded her pillbox hats for straw hats with sleeveless shirts and short shorts.
During a private boat trip with Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1993, Onassis is photographed wearing a red-striped long-sleeved T-shirt and a red scarf tied around her head with sunglasses, almost as a nod to her cousin, Little Edie’s eccentric. style at Gray Gardens.
The Kennedy Curse hits Martha’s Vineyard
On July 16, 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. died. together with his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette in a plane crash off the coast of the small island in the state of Massachusetts.
The couple and Lauren were given a sea burial by the US Navy, off the coast of Massachusetts.
The renovation of the Kennedy Home on Martha’s Vineyard
In 2000, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg commissioned Deborah Berke, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, to renovate the building. The main house was expanded to 6,456 square feet and the guest house had four bedrooms and a kitchen.
Other amenities on the property included a three-bedroom caretaker’s house, a swimming pool, a boathouse, a tennis court, two garages, a temperature-controlled storage building, and an original hunting lodge that stood there when Onassis purchased the land.
Kennedy Schlossberg’s daughter, Tatiana Schlossberg, married her current husband, George Moran, at the home in 2017.
The Future of the Kennedy House on Martha’s Vineyard
In 2019, the estate was put up for sale by Kennedy Schlossberg for $65 million.
“Forty years ago, my mother fell in love with Martha’s Vineyard. When she found Red Gate Farm, it was a perfect expression of her romantic and adventurous spirit,” she said at the time. “The dunes, ponds and rolling hills of Aquinnah gave her the opportunity to create a world where she could be so close to nature, close to her family and friends, and, most importantly, close to her beloved books.”
The house was a personal safe haven for Onassis. It is documented that, when she was ten years old, she wrote in a diary: “When I go along the sandy coast, I can think of nothing more than to live by the pounding blue sea while the seagulls flutter around me.”
The blue sea can be seen from every room in the house except the dining room.
Inside the Kennedy Compound: Photos of the family’s Hyannisport homes over the years
View gallery
The property was sold in September 2020 for $27 million to the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank Commission and the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation.
The nonprofits announced in a statement that they planned to convert the property into a nature reserve open to the public.
View photos of the Kennedy Family’s Hyannisport Compound below.
Launch Gallery: Inside the Kennedy Compound: Photos of the Family’s Hyannisport Homes Through the Years
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