Kennedy house to become study center

HYANNIS PORT, Mass., Jan. 31 (UPI) -- The Hyannis Port, Mass., home where President John F. Kennedy and his brothers spent childhood summers is to become a study center.

The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate announced Monday that the Kennedy family is giving the institute ownership of the famed 21-room house at the center of the family compound. The house is currently owned by Vicki Kennedy, widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

The institute said the late senator promised his mother, Rose, that the house would eventually be put to "charitable use."

"This house was my family's epicenter, where my grandparents, father, uncles and aunts would retreat to connect with one another through heated political debates in the dining room and rousing games on the front lawn,'' Ted Kennedy Jr., the senator's oldest son, said in a statement.

"Over the generations, we have returned to Hyannis Port in times of both happiness and pain,'' he said. "We have come to celebrate baptisms and marriages, await election results, and grieve the passing of our relatives."

Joseph Kennedy, the family patriarch, bought the house in 1928. Family members now own homes on adjacent properties.

It is expected that the main house will be used to host educational seminars and forums organized by the EMK Institute, as well as programs on behalf of other institutions, the institute said.