Martha’s Vineyard has long been the playground of the rich and famous, with many stars calling the island home.
But it also has a place in American history, as the much-loved home of the famed Kennedy clan, and was the scene of great tragedies linked to the island.
Let’s take a look at the history of Martha’s Vineyard and its famous residents, including Carly Simon, and the US presidents who have stayed there.
Martha’s Vineyard is a large island located on the east coast of the USA in the Atlantic Ocean.
It is in the state of Massachusetts, and is located close to the islands of Nantucket and Cape Cod, the latter of which is known for the eponymous decorating style.
All are popular summer destinations known for their quaint villages, beaches and lighthouses.
European settlement began in the 1600s and the name Martha’s Vineyard comes from either the mother-in-law or daughter of English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, who went there in 1602.
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Martha’s Vineyard first came to prominence in the 19th century as a result of the whaling industry.
Soon, Boston-based sea captains and merchant traders bought up land and created estates there.
From there, it grew in popularity as a summer destination for the wealthy.
Today, the island has a reported year-round population of about 20,530 people spread across six main towns, but in summer, the population increases ten-fold to about 200,000.
The Kennedy compound
In 1928, US businessman, investor, philanthropist, politician and Kennedy family patriarch Joseph Patrick Kennedy purchared a small holiday cottage on the island where he had previously holidayed.
By 1941, 50 Marchant Avenue, Hyannis Port, had become the family’s fulltime home where he and wife Rose raised their nine children.
In the years that followed, two of their sons bought neighbouring homes to create a compound.
It was here that John F Kennedy announced in 1960 that he would run for president.
After he was sworn in on January 20, 1961, he used Martha’s Vineyard as a “Summer White House” and presidential retreat until his assassination on November 22, 1963.
‘Chappaquiddick incident’
Almost six years after JFK’s death and a year after the assassination of his brother, US Senator Robert F Kennedy, Martha’s Vineyard was the scene of an incident involving the Kennedy family that received international notoriety.
The ‘Chappaquiddick incident’ refers to a motor vehicle accident that occurred on July 18, 1969.
Edward “Ted” Kennedy, their younger brother and a US Senator, was driving a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne back from a party on Chappaquiddick Island when the car ran off the road into a pond.
Kennedy escaped the vehicle and left the scene.
Kopechne was found dead in the car the next morning, an hour before Kennedy reported the accident.
He eventually pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended jail sentence.
While it reportedly ended his chances of becoming US president, he continued his political career, and became one of the longest-serving senators in US history.
However, many questions still surround the events of the night.
Celebrity enclave
By the late 1960s, celebrities began flocking to Martha’s Vineyard.
Among the first to discover the spot were Frank Sinatra and his then-wife Mia Farrow, who holidayed there during their ill-fated marriage from 1965 to 1968.
Farrow went on to buy a home there in the ’70s after their divorce.
In 1971, singer Carly Simon moved full-time to Martha’s Vineyard with her then-husband and fellow musician James Taylor.
They lived first in a ‘shack’, which they converted to a sprawling mansion and compound known as Hidden Star Hill.
After the couple’s divorce in 1983, she stayed and raised their two children while he owned a nearby farm.
Simon was instrumental in putting Martha’s Vineyard on the world stage after she recorded the 1987 televised concert Carly Simon: Live from Martha’s Vineyard.
Other stars to own homes on Martha’s Vineyard include Spike Lee, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, Larry David and Bill Murray, while many more celebrities have holidayed there.
Politicians including former US President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton also visited regularly.
It is the location of the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival.
The Obamas move in
In 2019, former US President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama bought what was described as a ‘substantial estate’ measuring 11 hectares in a town on Martha’s Vineyard known as Edgartown.
It was the venue for Barack’s star-studded 60th birthday party in August 2021, which was scaled back after drawing criticism for being held during a COVID surge.
The original 500-strong guest list was more than halved but notable attendees included John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Steven Spielberg, Bradley Cooper and Gayle King.
The Jackie Onassis years
Perhaps one of Martha’s Vineyard’s most famous part-time residents was John F Kennedy’s widow.
In 1979, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as she was known following her marriage to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, bought 137 hectares of undeveloped land at the southwestern tip of Martha’s Vineyard known as Red Gate Farm.
Her daughter Caroline Kennedy said in 2019, “My mother had grown up spending summers in Newport with her parents and grandparents.
“She loved exploring the Cape, sailing Nantucket Sound with my father, and being part of all the family activities and plans at Hyannis Port [the home of the Kennedy clan].
“But when my brother and I were grown she wanted a place of her own, and she found Red Gate Farm.”
She built a Cape Cod style house where she would host celebrities and politicians including Bill Clinton. It was her bolthole until her death in 1994.
Caroline announced she was selling the property in 2019, but it took several years to find a buyer given its initial AU$96 million price tag.
It was eventally sold off in pieces.
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The Land Bank and Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation purchased two large areas while a section was preserved for public use.
Caroline Kennedy retained about 38 hectares, including the main house.
The tragedy that shocked the world
In 1999, Martha’s Vineyard was linked to yet another tragedy involving the Kennedy family when Caroline’s brother, John F Kennedy Jr, his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren died in a plane crash while on route to the island.
Kennedy Jr, 38, was behind the controls of the aircraft when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on July 16, killing everyone on board.
It later emerged Kennedy Jr, who only attained his pilot licence 15 months before the fatal flight, was not qualified to use a plane’s cockpit instruments to navigate the plane, and should not have been flying at night.
The plane was reported missing, sparking a launch that lasted three days.
The wreckage of the doomed plane was found three days later, with all three bodies found near the fuselage, still strapped into their seats.
The plane had crashed almost nose-first into the Atlantic Ocean at about 9.41pm. It was just 12 kilometres from its first destination, Martha’s Vineyard.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined the probable cause of the accident was pilot failure to maintain control during a descent over water at night as a result of “spatial disorientation”.
Their ashes were later scattered off the coast, close to their beloved Martha’s Vineyard.
Fresh heartache for the Kennedys
The island is at the centre of another tragedy involving the Kennedy clan.
This week, just days after announcing the death of Caroline Kennedy’s daughter Tatiana Schlossberg, and hours before her funeral, the JFK Library Foundation released a photo of her with her husband and two young children.
The photo was reportedly taken at Martha’s Vineyard three months before she succumbed to a rare mutation of acute myeloid leukemia she had been battling since May 2024.
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The photo showed a smiling Schlossberg seated on the grass with her husband George Moran, their children Edwin and Josephine, and a family dog.
The island had been the scene of their wedding eight years before.
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