Bunny Mellon's Cape Cod Home Hits the Market
The property is located on Oyster Harbors, a private residential island community popular with the affluent, including the Mellons who first purchased property in the 1940s.
Overlooking Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Sound, the home is available for the first time in 50 years.
Scallop Path was purchased in the 1970s by the late American heiress and horticulturist Rachel “Bunny” Mellon and her husband, philanthropist and horse breeder Paul Mellon.
Although she had no formal training, Bunny was renowned for her garden designs, heavily influenced by French gardeners like André Le Nôtre.
A household name for horticulture, Bunny Mellon famously designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend, Jackie Kennedy, and even oversaw the restoration of the Potager du Roi at Versailles, Louis XIV’s kitchen garden.
At Scallop Path, Mellon transformed the landscape to create the simple-yet-elegant aesthetic of her gardens, shipping in fertile soil for her vegetable gardens and even pruning native oak trees overlooking Nantucket Sound to appear shaped by the nautical winds.
Scallop Path is one of Cape Cod’s original homes, set on an elevated bluff on the 7.44 acre island estate. The Cape Cod property was part of what was once a much larger 26 acre Cape Cod compound once belonging to the Mellons, now sold off.
Believed to be built circa 1680, the property was transported to the island in the 18th century, and updated in the 1970s by the Mellons.
The main house offers 7 bedrooms and 5 full baths, and there is also a 2-bedroom guest house on the property, offering a total of 5,894 square feet of accommodations.
The property also comes with a boat house, garage, and working shed. A proposal for the next chapter of Scallop Path is mentioned in the listing notes, provided by one of America’s top classical architects, Patrick Ahearn.
Photos belong to the listing agency.
Cover photo and first gallery photos belong to Mainstay Landscape Inc.
