MARTHA'S VINEYARD, Mass. -- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, one of the world's most famous women, has a new $3.1 million island hideaway where she can spend the summers secluded from the glare of publicity.
The oceanside Martha's Vineyard land where she built her cedar-shingled house, barn and silo is considered 'unique in all the world,' a place where Leif Ericson once walked 1,000 years ago, said building inspector Zachary Zandler.
Zandler certified the secluded, three-story traditional Cape Cod home 'liveable' in June.
'There's no other place like it. The vegetation and the mixture of plants -- it's all small scale, almost like a type of bonzai. It has incredible rocks, wildlife and fresh water ponds,' he said.
The much-talked about complex -- visible neither from the road nor the beach -- sits on Squibnocket Pond in Gay Head, a sparsely populated community on the western tip of Martha's Vineyard.
The 10,000 people who live year-round on the 13-by-21-mile island 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod seem indifferent to the arrival of another summertime celebrity.
'For us, it's not unusual to see Jackie at the fair or Walter Cronkite on his bike or Carly Simon or Beverly Sills at the A & P,' said Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Joann Walker. 'They don't dress any different or act any different than anyone else.'
Mrs. Onassis, who spends much of the year trying to lose herself in the crowds of New York City where she works at a publishing house, assured the town's 150 year-round residents she intended to make her home as unobtrusive as possible.
'Even Clark Kent couldn't see this house from the road,' Hugh Jacobsen, her Washington, D.C., architect, told Gay Head selectmen.
Mrs. Onassis paid the Hornblower family $1,110,000 in 1978 for 276 acres of Gay Head land teeming with lush vegetation, crystal clear ponds, and stretches of rock-studded beaches tucked into jagged clay cliffs.
For those who do get a look, the house is indeed worth seeing. Mrs. Onassis, one of the world's wealthiest women, has always been known for her exquisite -- and expensive -- taste.
When she became first lady in 1961, she embarked on a massive restoration of the White House, and then gave the American public a glimpse of the first family's home on national television.
Those involved with the Gay Head project are reluctant to reveal its building costs, but several sources have placed it at over $2 million.
The complex consists of a main house, a barn-like guest house, a two-car detached garage, and tennis courts. The landscape has been left in its natural state.
Cedar shingles cover the sides and roofs of the house, barn and garage, which all have white trim and old style New England shutters.
The main house has a living room, a family room, five bathrooms, three bedrooms, and two fireplaces. The main windows are what builders call '12 over 12s' -- a dozen rectangular panels divided by wooden frames on top and another dozen panels below, a style traditional for Cape Cod homes.
'The view is disguised so that you don't get the full impact of the ocean view until you are in her living room, which is all white - the walls, the floor, the fireplace and even the chimney,' Zandler said.
The floors are bleached oak. 'They have some sort of whitewash on them,' he said.
The kitchen is equipped with a 16-burner Vulcan stove, pantry, double sink, dishwasher and laundry room.
A mammoth butcher block chopping table takes up a large part of the kitchen, said Maggie Putnam, a Gay Head resident. 'You have to detour around it to get across the room,' she said.
All the bathrooms have white American Standard appliances and electrically heated towel bars.
'They are stainless steel bars hidden in the wall. The heat comes through the wall and warms the whole towel. The only place that makes them is in New York,' said a source who asked not to be named.
The main house has a full basement which apparently will be used for storage.
The two-story guest house has three skylights, two bedrooms, four bathrooms, a kitchen, living room and an attached silo.
'The guest house was built to look like it was a barn,' Zandler said. 'The silo is mainly for looks. It has a winding stairway with windows and a reading room at the top.'
A wraparound patio complete with an outside wet bar adjoins two sides of the main house. The deck furniture is modern white tubing with azure blue cushions.
Gay Head tax collector Maysel Vanderhoop said the town will collect no taxes from Mrs. Onassis until 1982.
'We assess Jan. 1 through Dec. 31. As of last Jan. 1, the house was uninhabitable, so the first of next year we will assess it and she will begin paying taxes,' Mrs. Vanderhoop said. 'That's how most Massachusetts towns do it.
'Next year will be the first time we have assessed property at 100 percent, which we had to do because we don't have that many year round residents,' he said.
Real estate agent Peggy Hall said Mrs. Onassis' complex had raised land values in Gay Head, but otherwise no one had paid much attention to the luxurious estate. 'Everybody's happy as long as she doesn't make too much noise.
'It's a beautiful piece of land, and some folks were sorry to see it sold,' said Mrs. Vanderhoop. 'There was some excitement at first and a lot of cars around. That was a nuisance. But I think most people would rather see it go to one person than to developers. We don't want to see a lot of kooks walking around.'
Residents who waged a successful 'stop McDonalds' campaign in 1979 are quick to discourage curious onlookers from trying to get a closer look at the celebrities who call the island home, at least for part of the year.
But they aren't always succesful.
Betty Haynes, who delivers mail when she's not running the cash register at the West Tisbury General Store, said people stop her constantly on her Gay Head mail route asking her to point out 'Jackie's house.'
'They ask me which driveway is hers, but all I tell them is she lives in Gay Head,' she shrugged. 'She gets her mail at a post office box, anyway.'
James Regan, 77, who prunes the petunias, impatiens, mums and asters that adorn the lawn of Vineyard Haven's post office, said there was a lot of curiosity about Mrs. Onassis.
'When people see her, it becomes an event. But I'd much rather do this than concern myself with her comings and goings,' he said as he untwirled a stubborn weed from the stem of a fledgling petunia.
Most Vineyard residents have learned to tolerate, and, in many cases, depend on the annual May-September invasion of tourists and summer residents who stream from the gangplanks of the ferry that runs between the island and the mainland.
'Guests welcome' signs hang in the front windows of homeowners willing to rent our spare bedrooms to visitors daring enough to bring their overnight bags without reservations.
The Martha's Vineyard Chamber of Commerce, which shares its building with a health food store, estimates the day-trippers and weekenders swell the island's summer population to 70,000.
Tourists armed with cameras and credit cards make a crucial difference to the dozens of small, family run businesses whose winter survival depends on a lucrative summer season.
Many of the year-round residents in Mrs. Onassis' neighborhood are descendants of the Wampanoag Indians.
Gladys Widdiss, 67, who heads the Wampanoag Tribal Council, said a federal lawsuit attempting to reclaim sections of Gay Head common lands and beaches has no connection with Mrs. Onassis' presence.
'Her land is not included in the area involved in the lawsuit, which was filed in 1974,' said the grandmother, who had just returned from gathering wild grapes.
Zandler said he believed Mrs. Onassis took into consideration other residents' feelings when she decided exactly where to erect the house.
'I felt she was very sensitive to the community. It's very tastefully done,' he said. 'She could have built on a knoll directly behind the house that stands about 50 feet high and offers a much better view. I'd say nine out of 10 people would have built their house there.'
Tourists may come to gawk, but islanders who have a healthy respect for the right of privacy will zealousy guard that right for Mrs. Onassis, who has spent much of her life hiding from nosey cameramen.
'The famous people who live here come to get away from people watching them,' said Ms. Walker of the chamber of commerce. 'They just want to be left alone.'
adv for thurs oct.
