The Kennedy family’s real estate legacy effectively begins at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, the waterfront enclave assembled by patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. beginning in the late 1920s.
Joe and Rose Kennedy first rented in the Cape Cod village in 1926 before reportedly purchasing a clapboard house at 50 Marchant Avenue in 1929 for roughly $300,000, a substantial sum at the time. Known as Malcolm Cottage, the home and the property were expanded over the years as the family grew, transforming it into a nearly six-acre multigenerational compound with three substantial residences overlooking Nantucket Sound.
Along with Malcom Cottage, there is 111 Irving Avenue, JFK’s home, and another residence at 28 Marchant Avenue, which was owned by the late senator Ted Kennedy. The seaside spread eventually included a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a four-car garage.
By the time Kennedy launched his presidential campaign in 1960, Hyannis Port had become the informal nerve center of the family’s political operation. Strategy sessions unfolded on the porch while the future president sailed just offshore. During the presidency, Onassis brought their children—Caroline and John Jr.—to the Cape each summer. The compound remains in the hands of the Kennedy family.
The property appears in the FX series Love Story, though filming took place at a waterfront house in Bellport, Long Island, where the production designers reportedly modified the property with period furnishings, a flagpole, and a white pebble driveway to evoke the Kennedy aesthetic. The scenes in one of the home’s dining rooms were filmed on a soundstage.
In the show’s fifth episode, which depicts Kennedy Jr. bringing his then girlfriend Carolyn Bessette to Hyannis Port for the first time, the couple attends an extended Kennedy family dinner led by his aunt Ethel Kennedy. JFK and Jackie’s cottage, which is smaller than the home portrayed on screen, served as their base on the compound, where the couple later hosted friends from New York after their 1996 wedding.
Source: Luxury - robbreport.com
