- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived all over, from New York apartments to East Coast mansions.
- She said her family’s “happiest years” were those spent with President John F. Kennedy in the White House.
- Here are all of the impressive places she lived in and owned in her lifetime.
Throughout her life, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has lived in grand estates and luxury apartments, including the White House when her husband, President John F. Kennedy, served as president.
She grew up in spacious New York apartments and several-acre estates, and after her marriage, she spent her summers at the famed Kennedy Compound and winters on the family’s estate in Palm Beach. Though out of all the impressive properties she has resided in, she said her family’s “happiest years” were those spent with her husband in the White House.
Here are all of the impressive places she lived in and owned in her lifetime.
Before she was a Kennedy or an Onassis, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier spent her early years in New York City.
In 1932, the Bouviers moved into an apartment on the sixth and seventh floors of 740 Park Avenue.
The apartment building was developed by her grandfather, James T. Lee. At least for a period, her father couldn’t afford to furnish it so Jackie and her sister could roller skate from room to room.
The apartment building later became a home for billionaires and was once considered one of the most iconic apartment buildings in the city.
In 2017, her old apartment sold for $25.25 million.
In the 1940s, Bouvier’s mother remarried, and they left New York.
They moved into a Georgian-style mansion called “Merrywood” in McLean, Virginia, in Washington, DC.
The mansion, which was built in 1919, sits on the edge of the Potomac River and covers 23,000 square feet.
Bouvier’s mother had married an oil magnate named Hugh D. Auchincloss, who owned the mansion.
At the time, it had nine bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, as well as an extensive garden.
Bouvier wrote fondly about the house in her diary, saying, “I always love it so at Merrywood — so peaceful … with the river and those great steep hills.”
Bouvier spent her summers at her paternal grandfather’s East Hampton estate called “Lasata,” which means “place of peace,” in the native Algonquian language.
The house, which was 8,500 square feet, was built in 1917 and sat on about seven acres.
Earlier this year, the fashion designer, Tom Ford, bought it for $52 million.
She also spent some of her summers at her maternal grandfather’s house in East Hampton called “Wildmoor.”
The 18th-century home, covering about 5,700 square feet, was a shingle-and-clapboard wooden house with a view of fields, a swamp, and the sea, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In 2021, the house was sold for $6.8 million.
Her next notable property was the Kennedy family’s summer home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
Joseph Kennedy Sr., John F. Kennedy’s father, bought a white-shingled cottage in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, for $25,000 — about $450,000 today. The coastal Massachusetts cottage became the Kennedy family’s home base for years to come.
Before they were married, Bouvier and John F. Kennedy spent some time together there, which later became known as the “Kennedy Compound.”
The Kennedys bought the house in 1928, Town and Country reported.
In 1953, Bouvier became a Kennedy when the couple married in Newport, Rhode Island.
They had the wedding reception at her mother’s husband’s sprawling estate, known as “Hammersmith Farm,” anchored by a grand, 28-room Victorian-era mansion.
The property was last sold in 1999 for just over $8 million.
The estate became a part-time summer home for the Kennedys, along with the Kennedy Compound.
Jackie Kennedy spent summers on the estate during her childhood, and the Kennedys later vacationed there in the summer of 1961.
In 1953, not long after the Kennedys were married, they rented a four-story, four-bedroom house in Georgetown at 3321 Dent Place.
The Kennedys lived there for almost two years.
They enjoyed throwing dinner parties and spending time in its back gardens.
The house is about 3,000 square feet.
Two years later, in 1955, the Kennedys moved to “Hickory Hill,” another Georgian-style house.
This one was built in 1815 and had a tennis court, a pool, and 12 fireplaces on a 5.6-acre plot in McLean, Virginia.
They bought it from Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.
Two years later, the Kennedys sold it for $250,000 to John’s brother, Robert, who would end up raising his own family there.
Jackie didn’t want to go back after her daughter was stillborn.
Robert Kennedy was at the house when he heard John had been assassinated, the Baltimore Sun reported. He spent an hour alone, walking around the estate.
In 1956, the Kennedys bought a summer home at 111 Irving Avenue in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, right beside the original Kennedy summer home.
The 4,484-square-foot clapboarded home sat on less than an acre of land and soon became part of the “Kennedy Compound.”
They spent $45,948 on the house.
In 1957, the Kennedys bought 3307 N Street, an 18th-century brick row house in Georgetown, for $82,000.
Jackie spent about $18,000 on remodeling it, and she decorated the house with armchairs and good porcelain.
Her husband campaigned and was elected president during their years here, Architectural Digest reported.
Though not officially a property she owned, Jackie lived in the White House with her family during her husband’s presidency from 1961 to the end of 1963.
She later described this period as her family’s “happiest years,” The Daily Beast reported.
During the winters, while they were living in the White House, they vacationed at her father-in-law Joseph Kennedy’s Palm Beach estate.
The Palm Beach estate became known as the Kennedys’ “winter White House.” In 2020, the house sold for $70 million and underwent extensive renovations by the new owner.
In 1963, after her husband was assassinated, Jackie and her children left the White House and moved into an 18th-century home at 3017 N Street in Georgetown.
She paid around $175,000 for the five-bedroom house but only lived there for about a year. It was too public, and she reportedly became overwhelmed with all of the tourists.
In 2017, it was purchased for $5.25 million.
In 1964, Jackie and her children moved back to New York after she discreetly bought a 5,300-square-foot apartment on the 15th floor of 1040 Fifth Avenue for $200,000.
The apartment had five bathrooms, three fireplaces, two terraces, and a library.
It also had a view of Central Park.
Jackie Kennedy owned the apartment until she died in 1994.
It was bought from her estate in 1995 for $9.2 million.
The buyer said she hadn’t done much upkeep, and they ended up gutting the whole apartment.
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.
She also got married again in 1968 to a Greek shipping magnate named Aristotle Onassis and became Jackie Onassis, or “Jackie O.”
In 1974, Onassis purchased a country home — a converted barn on almost 10 acres — for $200,000 in Peapack, New Jersey.
She liked the area for its natural beauty and space for horse riding.
She knew the area well because she had previously rented a farmhouse described by The Times as a “badly made-over barn” in Bernardsville since 1965.
After she bought the property, she painted it yellow with white trim.
After Onassis died, her neighbor and friend, Marjorie McDonnell Walsh, bought the Peapack property for $1.47 million in 1997.
Walsh told The Wall Street Journal they tore the house down.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said when declining to share details about the new house. “The much more important thing is we both love the property. It’s a private valley. It’s beautiful.”
In 1979, after her second husband died, Jackie decided to build a new house called “Red Gate Farm,” on 340 acres of land in Martha’s Vineyard.
She only spent a little more than $1 million on the land, and then another $3.1 million on building the house, which was finished in 1981. The main building covers 6,456 square feet.
There’s also a four-bedroom guest house, a pool, and a tennis court. The property stretches across a mile of beach.
In 2020, it was put up for sale for $65 million.
Editor’s note: This story was first published in September 2023 and has been updated with additional information.
Correction: July 1, 2024 — An earlier version of this story included a photo caption that misidentified a man pictured with Jackie Kennedy Onassis in Paris. The photo has been removed.
Source: Business Insider
