HYANNIS PORT, Mass., Aug 26
Edward Kennedy died at the family home on Cape Cod, a sprawling seaside retreat long associated with a famous American political dynasty.
Police closed off Scudder Avenue, which leads to the 6 acre (2.4 hectare) Hyannis Port property, where media crews began to assemble before dawn on Wednesday after Kennedy's death on Tuesday evening.
Kennedy, who was diagnosed with brain cancer last year, had spent his final days there.
The three-gabled, white clapboard house that is the centerpiece of the compound was the backdrop in early videos of assassinated president John Kennedy, one of Edward's brothers, playing football on the sandy beach with his family or sailing in Nantucket Sound.
The compound has also been a place for family members to shelter from media attention since the days of President Kennedy. They retreated there after tragedies that dotted the decades, including the death of the president's son, John Kennedy Jr., in a plane crash 10 years ago.
Edward Kennedy's father, Joseph Kennedy, bought the property in 1929, according to the National Park Service. He expanded what had been built in 1904 as a beach cottage into a building that today houses 11 bedrooms and is surrounded by long porches, a swimming pool and a tennis court.
John Kennedy and another brother, assassinated Senator Robert Kennedy, bought homes nearby, further expanding the property.
In his later years, Edward Kennedy was also closely associated with the Nantucket Sound, where he often competed in sailing races. He also staunchly opposed a proposal to build the United States' first offshore wind farm in that body of water.
Cape Cod, with its quaint villages and picturesque coastline arching into the Atlantic, has long been a popular vacation spot in the northeastern United States.
President Barack Obama and his family are currently on a week's vacation in Martha's Vineyard, an island across the bay from Hyannis Port.
-Reuters
