This house belonged to my cousin, Katherine Hepburn.
What? I've never told you about Cousin Kate?
Well, actually, Katherine and I were only recently acquainted by ancestry.com, and they confirmed she and I had the same Grandmother. Well, great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother to me, and great-great-great-great-great-grandmother to her. (That's eight generations for me and five for Kate).
Have you ever played around on one of these ancestry web sites? It's absolutely fascinating. I'm not sure if Katherine and I would have seen eye to eye on some issues, but on decorating, we're practically twins!
If only we had known of our close family ties, perhaps I would have been invited to stay in this fabulous house of hers in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. I would have even offered to make a big pot of grits for us in this kitchen . . . but I would have made her wash the pot.
The house was sold last year for somewhere in the range of about $14.8 million, and was owned not only by Katherine Hepburn as an adult, but was also her parent's home when she was a little girl, so she grew up playing here. Forget visiting, I should have inherited it, don't you think?
Ahhh. This would have been "my" guest room.
This is the master bedroom. The entire house was completely renovated in 2005 with updates in technology added without disturbing the original, classic details.
This is the third floor landing which leads to two more bedrooms for a total of six.
A practical potting room would have allowed us to share seeds passed down from our dearest Grand-ma-ma's garden.
If only I had known of my link to Katherine Hepburn before her death in 2003. Think of all the fun we would have had!
And as one more weird coincidence, long before I knew of this very distant relation, I dressed up as the older Katherine Hepburn (think On Golden Pond) for a costume party once. Strange costume, and I can't remember the theme. Maybe it was, "Come as someone you may discover you are related to when genealogy computer software is invented someday" party. And also weird - she and I were/are the exact same height and weight (give or take a sporadic dessert or two)!
To see a few more photos of this lovely house, click
HERE, and do -tell, what was your favorite movie my cousin made? (Mine is Woman of the Year).
