HYANNISPORT, Mass. (AP) – The Hyannisport home once owned by President Kennedy and his wife has been sold for $3 million, but is staying in the Kennedy clan.

Kennedy family friend Dick Gallagher said U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy bought the house located in the family’s compound early last month from his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and her husband.

“It was sold to the senator to keep it in the family,” Gallagher told the Cape Cod Times. “It will always be the president’s house.”

Caroline is the daughter of the late President and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Gallagher says Caroline and her family hardly spend any time on Cape Cod, preferring to vacation at a family estate on Martha’s Vineyard.

Gallagher says Senator Kennedy will rent the property to relatives, primarily nephew Anthony Shriver.

The two-story, nine-bedroom, cedar-shingled house, built around 1925, was purchased by the future president in 1956 for nearly $46,000. It sits on a 1.3 acre lot and is assessed at about $1.7 million.

Shriver heads the nonprofit organization “Best Buddies” and spends summers in Hyannisport with his family.

The buyer of the house is listed as the Irving Avenue Nominee Trust, which was created in March, according to records at the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds. Michael Ford, a Harwich attorney, is the trustee.

The trust’s address is listed as the Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises, Fifth Avenue, in New York City, which has long handled much of the extended Kennedy family’s financial and legal dealings. Joseph P. Kennedy was the father of President Kennedy and the family patriarch. He died in 1969.

Gallagher said that while the Hyannisport house was left to John and Caroline upon their mother’s death, only John made Hyannisport his summer home.

Although Kennedy continued to own the house when he was president, it was not the summer White House, as some believe. Because of security concerns – the house sits right on the street – Kennedy and his family occupied a house on nearby Squaw Island during his presidency, and it was that home that was known as the summer White House.

AP-ES-07-04-04 0505EDT