From a 740 Park Avenue apartment to the Kennedy Compound and her later Martha’s Vineyard retreat, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived through different versions of privilege—each with its own price, privacy limits, and resale afterlife.
A life built on grand addresses has a way of turning into a market story long after the occupants are gone.. For Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. the record of her homes reads less like a single fairy tale than a series of shifts between privacy and visibility—spanning New York apartments. Potomac-side estates. and an island landscape that eventually opened to the public.
Before the White House defined her image. she was Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. moving into an apartment on the sixth and seventh floors of 740 Park Avenue in 1932.. The building had been developed by her grandfather, James T.. Lee.. For a period. her father couldn’t afford to furnish it. and Jackie and her sister roller-skated from room to room.. Years later, the apartment would become a billionaire address; in 2017, her old home sold for $25.25 million.
Her childhood also included a different kind of space.. In the 1940s, after her mother remarried, the family left New York for “Merrywood” in McLean, Virginia, near Washington, DC.. The Georgian-style mansion had 23. 000 square feet. nine bedrooms. and 13 bathrooms. sitting at the edge of the Potomac River with an extensive garden.. It was owned by her mother’s husband, oil magnate Hugh D.. Auchincloss.. In her diary, Bouvier wrote warmly about the place—“so peaceful … with the river and those great steep hills.”
On Long Island, too, her summers carried the same promise of calm.. She spent time at her paternal grandfather’s East Hampton estate. “Lasata. ” built in 1917 and described as meaning “place of peace” in the native Algonquian language.. In 2023, fashion designer Tom Ford bought the property for $52 million.. She also spent summers at her maternal grandfather’s East Hampton home. “Wildmoor. ” an 18th-century house of about 5. 700 square feet overlooking fields. a swamp. and the sea; it sold in 2021 for $6.8 million.
When John F.. Kennedy entered the picture, the geography shifted again—but the pattern stayed.. The Kennedy family’s coastal base in Hyannis Port began with Joseph Kennedy Sr.. who bought a white-shingled cottage there in 1928 for $25. 000 (about $470. 000 today).. Bouvier and John F.. Kennedy spent time together at the cottage before their marriage, and it later became known as the “Kennedy Compound.”
They married in 1953 in Newport, Rhode Island.. The reception was held at Bouvier’s mother’s husband’s sprawling estate. “Hammersmith Farm. ” anchored by a 28-room Victorian-era mansion; it last sold in 1999 for just over $8 million.. Summers after the wedding blended the family’s two worlds—Hammersmith Farm became a part-time Kennedys’ summer home alongside the Kennedy Compound. including a vacation in the summer of 1961.
In Washington, the couple initially lived more modestly than their eventual orbit suggested.. In 1953. not long after the wedding. they rented a four-story. four-bedroom house in Washington. DC. built in the 1940s and about 3. 000 square feet.. They stayed for almost two years, entertaining with dinner parties and time in the back gardens.. The house last sold for $4 million in April 2025.
Two years later. they moved to “Hickory Hill. ” another Georgian-style property in McLean. Virginia. acquired in 1955 from Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.. Built in 1815, it sat on a 5.6-acre plot and featured a tennis court, a pool, and 12 fireplaces.. The Kennedys later sold it for $250,000 to Robert Kennedy, who raised his family there.. The story of why the Kennedys left Hickory Hill is personal: “Jackie didn’t want to go back after her daughter was stillborn. ” and Robert Kennedy was present when he heard John had been assassinated. spending an hour alone walking the estate.
Hyannis Port kept expanding. In 1956, the Kennedys bought a summer home next to the original Kennedy summer property. The 4,484-square-foot clapboard house sat on less than an acre and soon became part of the “Kennedy Compound,” costing $45,948.
The move that brought Jackie closer to the Kennedy campaign and presidency came in 1957.. The couple bought an 18th-century brick row house in Georgetown for $82,000.. Jackie spent about $18,000 on remodeling, and Architectural Digest reported that John campaigned and was elected president during their years there.. They lived in the home between 1957 and 1961, selling soon after.. In 2026, the 5,215-square-foot, five-bedroom house sold for $6.125 million.
Her happiest years, she later said, belonged to the White House era itself.. She lived there with her family during her husband’s presidency from 1961 to 1963. and later described that period as her family’s “happiest years.” Winters. meanwhile. took them to Joseph Kennedy’s Palm Beach estate. which became known as the Kennedys’ “winter White House.” In 2020. the house sold for $70 million and underwent extensive renovations by the new owner.
After the assassination in 1963. Jackie left the White House and moved into another DC home—an 18th-century house at 3017 N Street Northwest.. She paid around $175,000 for the five-bedroom property, but lived there for about a year.. The reason was blunt: it was too public, and she reportedly became overwhelmed by the tourists.. In 2017, it was purchased for $5.25 million.
Not all her later residences faced the same exposure. Jackie owned the apartment in DC she moved into after that period until her death in 1994. It was bought from her estate in 1995 for $9.2 million, and the buyer said she hadn’t done much upkeep—leading them to gut the entire apartment.
Her life after politics also broadened internationally.. While she was alive, she began dividing her time between France, Greece, Martha’s Vineyard, and New Jersey.. She kept New York as a home base and remarried in 1968 to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. becoming Jackie Onassis. or “Jackie O.”
In Peapack, New Jersey, she purchased a country home in 1974—a converted barn on almost 10 acres for $200,000.. The New York Times reported she liked the area for natural beauty and space for horse riding. and she knew it well because she had previously rented a farmhouse described by the Times as a “badly made-over barn” in Bernardsville since 1965.. After buying the property, she painted it yellow with white trim.. A neighbor and friend later bought the property for $1.47 million in 1997; the neighbor. Marjorie McDonnell Walsh. told The Wall Street Journal they tore the house down. saying the property’s privacy mattered more than anything else.
Her final major act of ownership landed on Martha’s Vineyard.. In 1979. after Onassis died. Jackie decided to build a new house called “Red Gate Farm” on 340 acres of land. finishing the project in 1981.. She reportedly spent a little more than $1 million on the land and another $3.1 million on building the house.. The main building covered 6. 456 square feet. and the property included a four-bedroom guest house. a pool. and a tennis court. stretching across a mile of beach.
By 2020, that estate entered the market.. It was put up for sale for $65 million. and the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank and Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation bought 304 acres for $27 million. according to the Vineyard Gazette.. The Land Bank later bought an additional 32 acres.. The estate is now known as Squibnocket Pond Reservation. and members of the public can walk trails across the land. while the Kennedy family still owns 65 acres of the estate. including the home.
Even as her addresses have changed—from row house to estate. from controlled privacy to open trails—one theme returns: the same glamorous life leaves behind assets that outlast the people.. The housing history is rich. but the real tension sits in who gets access next. and what happens to a private world once ownership shifts.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis homes 740 Park Avenue Merrywood Lasata Wildmoor Kennedy Compound Hickory Hill Georgetown row house Palm Beach winter White House Red Gate Farm Squibnocket Pond Reservation