In the world of real estate, the Kennedy legacy has always proved less a curse than a multimillion-dollar blessing. Homes once inhabited by members of the dynasty are sprinkled throughout the toniest enclaves of the world—from Hyannis Port to McLean, Skorpios to the Côte d’Azur—and, lucky for the most well-endowed among us, they occasionally come up for sale. [Source: Town and Country]
Spring is turning out to be quite a season for house wars a la Kennedy. In early March, news broke that Domaine de Beaumont, a 9-bedroom French Riviera villa where John F. Kennedy vacationed as a child in the late 1930s, when his father was ambassador to the UK, had been listed at Sotheby’s for $34 million. Stateside, two properties in Georgetown with Kennedy provenance have also recently been put on the market. And in a strange twist of real estate fate, they happen to serve as bricked bookends to Jackie and John’s tragic love story.
First, there is Compass’s $2 million listing at 3321 Dent Place NW, where the couple spent the early years of their marriage. A few months after their grand Newport wedding in September 1953, the two rented this four-story house, from which the then-senator commuted to his job on the Hill and his wife took American history classes at Georgetown University.
BETTMANN//GETTY IMAGES
The house has been owned by the same family since it was built in 1942 (an offer for the property is currently pending) and many period details remain, including the Canadian oak floors, the wood-burning fireplace, the original moldings in the dining room, and an English-style garden in the backyard. The Kennedys lived here for just shy of two years before moving into Hickory Hill, a grand Georgian-style mansion in McLean, in the fall of 1955. They stayed there for a year before moving back to Georgetown, and then, after JFK’s presidential win, into the White House.
SEAN SHANAHAN/JONATHAN TAYLOR (TTR SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY)
A picturesque 15-minute stroll away from the couple’s Dent Place home sits the Newton D. Baker house, at 3017 N Street NW, which was Jackie’s last DC address. In early 1964, deep in mourning following JFK’s assassination the previous November, his widow and children sought refuge back in the neighborhood where her life as a Kennedy had begun. First it was at the home of W. Averell Harriman, the diplomat, politician, and former governor of New York. Eventually Jackie found her own place across the street: an 18th-century pile named for Newton D. Baker, America’s WWI-era Secretary of War.
SEAN SHANAHAN/JONATHAN TAYLOR (TTR SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY)
Built in 1794, the five-bedroom home was added to the National Register of Historic Landmarks in 1976. Jackie only lived here for a year—the public’s feverish fascination with the former First Lady turned the residence into a tourist hotspot, compelling her to move back to New York and into the safe confines of 1040 Fifth Avenue.
In 2017, a wealthy businessman bought the property and combined it with two adjoining addresses, 3009 and 3003, to create a sprawling 16,000-square-foot estate with 13 bedrooms (more photos of the Sotheby’s listing here). So what is owning a tiny sliver of Kennedy real estate history worth to you? This one is $26.5 million. [Source: Town and Country]
