Way back in 1979, the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis purchased a property on Martha's Vineyard for use as a summer home. Now, her daughter Caroline Kennedy has placed the property on the real estate market, and the current asking price is some $64 million greater than what Jackie O paid for it 40 years ago.
Of course, when the former First Lady bought the property back then, the only building on it was a small hunting cabin, whereas afterwards she financed the construction of a sprawling main house and guest house both designed by architect Hugh Newell Jacobson. Then, in 2000, Caroline Kennedy financed an extensive renovation by architect Deborah Berke, all of which goes a long way towards explaining the larger listing price – not to mention the 40 years worth of inflation that's taken place in the meantime.
The estate, known as Red Gate Farm, spreads across 340 acres, with 6,456 square feet for the main house, with five bedrooms and five baths. Tack on another four beds, three baths for the guest house, plus a storage building, boat house, the aforementioned hunting cabin, and a house for a caretaker and staff and you have Red Gate Farm in its entirety. But that doesn't capture the array of amenities on the property, including a swimming pool, tennis court, rustic features like a vegetable garden and blueberry patch, and a full mile of private beach. All in all, the property was designed to be "a place where the natural world can be conserved," according to the listing by Christie's International Real Estate, which is handling the sale. Not bad for a property that was just a simple sheep farm when it was purchased by the former First Lady in 1979!
You can take a look at the former summer home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the video below from Christie's International Real Estate:
