The Kennedys have been omnipresent in American politics and history as a whole for at least one hundred years, captivating America with their triumphs and tragedies alike. And in that century, the state of Massachusetts has been central to their lore, President John F. Kennedy having been born just outside of central Boston, the birth city of father Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
More specifically, the famed Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, on the southern coast of Cape Cod, has been inextricably tied to the political dynasty's history. It has served as a backdrop for some of the most pivotal moments in their family — and the history of the United States — a place where the family has come to celebrate, to grieve, and sow the seeds of change and progress in American politics.
The Kennedys' roots in Hyannis Port trace back to exactly 100 years ago, 1926, when the Kennedy family patriarch Joseph — who at 38 was already a millionaire with ventures including banking, stock trading, producing movies, and selling liquor — was renting a summer home with his wife Rose Fitzgerald on the south shore in Cohasset.
© Getty ImagesHis application to the exclusive Cohasset Country Club was rejected, allegedly because of the club's anti-Irish Catholic sentiment, according to the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum. Instead he discovered the Hyannisport Club, whose Irish Catholic manager welcomed him with open arms.
He began renting Malcolm Cottage, a large home at the end of Marchant Avenue built in 1904 by local Cape Cod resident Frank Payne, which he then purchased two years later for $25,000 (around $488,000 today). The home, which Joseph then extensively renovated, became the cornerstone of the Kennedy Compound, and of the famed family's legacy in Hyannis Port.
Keep scrolling for photos and details of the famed compound.
1920s: The Kennedy family buys and expands their Hyannis Port compound
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© Getty ImagesThe home Joseph purchased in 1928 is the centerpiece of what would become a six-acre waterfront compound. The former British Ambassador expanded the cottage, known as the "Big House," into a 21-room mansion, featuring 12 bedrooms, a steam room, and a 50-person theater in the basement.
Three homes comprise the compound; in 1956, JFK, then a U.S. senator and rising political star, purchased a smaller home at 111 Irving Avenue for $45,948, and in 1959, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, who served as his attorney general during his presidency, purchased an adjacent property, on 28 Marchant Avenue.
The Kennedy Compound today is still just those three homes on six acres, which are used to this day by the famed clan. However, other members of the Kennedy family — today a vast web of grandchildren, cousins and in-laws — have been known to own other properties in the area.
1930s: The nine Kennedy siblings at Hyannis Port
© Getty ImagesPictured above are Joseph and Rose in the 1930s with their nine children, Robert Kennedy (1925-1968), Edward Kennedy (1932-2009), Eunice Kennedy (1921-2009), Rosemary Kennedy (1918-2005), Kathleen Kennedy (1920-1948), Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (1915-1944), John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), Rose Kennedy (1890-1995), Jean Kennedy (1928-2020), and Patricia Kennedy (1924-2006).
1950s: Jackie Kennedy and JFK celebrated their engagement in Hyannis Port
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© Getty ImagesJFK proposed to Jackie on June 24, 1953, reportedly at a booth at Martin's Tavern in Washington D.C., now famously dubbed "The Proposal Booth" and identified with a plaque. Afterwards, the couple took engagement photos at the compound to announce their forthcoming wedding, which took place in nearby Newport, Rhode Island, on September 12, 1953.
1960s: The compound served as a campaign base for JFK
© Getty ImagesThe Kennedy Compound was both a personal retreat for JFK, and later a presidential campaign base and eventually the Summer White House. There, he was known to host journalists like Barbara Walters and Walter Cronkite, and hold press conferences, meetings, and interviews that furthered Hyannis Port as part of the Kennedys' national image.
"I always go to Hyannisport to be revived, to know again the power of the sea and the master who rules over it and all of us," JFK once said, according to the Cape Cod Times.
1960s: Jackie and JFK's fourth child was born in Cape Cod
© Getty ImagesJackie was staying at a rented home on Halls Island near the compound in August 1963, when she went into premature labor while pregnant with her fourth child, Patrick. The baby boy was born at Otis Air Force Base Hospital in Cape Cod, and transferred to Boston Children's Hospital, before his death at just 39 hours old, from complications of hyaline membrane disease, now known as respiratory distress syndrome (RDS).
1980s: Multiple Kennedy weddings were held in Hyannis Port
© Getty ImagesJackie and JFK may not have gotten married at Hyannis Port themselves, but many Kennedy family weddings were held at the compound, sometimes with star-studded guest lists.
Among them were the wedding of Eunice's daughter Maria Shriver to Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1986; they tied the knot at the family's church, St. Francis Xavier, and later celebrated at the compound, with guests such as Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey, Walter Cronkite, Andy Warhol, Grace Jones, and Lyndon B. Johnson's widow Lady Bird Johnson in attendance. That same year, Jackie and JFK's only daughter, Caroline Kennedy, had her wedding reception at the compound.
More recently, RFK and Ethel Kennedy's granddaughter Sarah Kennedy married Jam Sulahry at the compound, in August 2023, as did Kerry Kennedy and ex-husband Andrew Cuomo's daughter Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, who married Tellef Lundevall in July 2024.
1990s: A place to mourn
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© Getty ImagesThe compound has been the site where the Kennedys have come to mourn many of the tragedies that have plagued them, including the assassination of JFK, after which Jackie retreated to Hyannis Port to grieve.
It was also where the Kennedys, initially gathered for Rory Kennedy's wedding in July 1999, instead waited there together with bated breath after they were alerted that the plane piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. and carrying his wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette had gone missing on its way to Martha's Vineyard.
In 2009, JFK's sister, Eunice, was laid to rest in Hyannis Port after her death, and Ted Kennedy died in his Hyannis Port home shortly after. He is interred at Arlington National Cemetery, where his brothers JFK and RFK were also buried. Ethel, the Kennedy family matriarch after Jackie's 1994 death and the last living member of Camelot until her death in 2024, was celebrated with a funeral mass nearby at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Centerville.
1990s: The third Kennedy generation at Hyannis Port
© Getty ImagesThe Hyannis Port compound, or rather a version of it, featured prominently in Ryan Murphy's Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette. And though some Kennedy family members, most notably Caroline's son Jack Schlossberg, disputed the series as a farce, one scene that Kennedy experts claim to be at least partly true is Carolyn's first interaction with Kennedy matriarch Ethel in September 1994, at the compound.
Ethel, as depicted in the series, had a penchant for quizzing family members and guests about current events over dinner. According to J. Randy Taraborrelli's book The Kennedy Heirs, Ethel asked Carolyn her opinion on the federal assault weapons ban — which President Bill Clinton signed into law that very September 1994 — and after Carolyn said she was unsure, Ethel responded: "You may want to read up on it."
1926-present: The Kennedys' community at Hyannis Port
© Getty ImagesIn the last 100 years, the Kennedys have become part of the local fabric of Cape Cod and Hyannis Port. Among the local businesses they have been reported to frequent in the last several decades has been Cape Cod institution the Four Seas, an ice cream shop where a personal check from Jackie was long displayed on the wall, as well as Baxter's Wharf.
According to Kate Storey's White House by the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port, John Jr. spent the summer after his college graduation living in a home near the compound working on a salvage diving ship, and he would frequent The Beachcomber in Wellfleet, and Joe's Twin Villa in Osterville.
2026-onwards: Millennial Camelot and the Kennedy Compound today
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© InstagramToday, hundreds of Kennedys still get together at the compound, most notably for their annual Fourth of July celebration and family reunion.
The Big House served as Ted's principal residence from 1982 until his death in 2009, and in the years after his death, his widow Vicki Kennedy donated it to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. It is now used for special meetings and educational programs rather than as a private residence.
RFK's home was occupied by his wife Ethel until her passing in 2024, and Jackie and JFK's adjoining home on Irving Street is owned by Ted's son, Edward M. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer and former senator, according to the JFK Hyannis Museum.
