With a House for Jeb, Bush Family's Maine Compound Set to Expand

A house for likely Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is going up at his family's storied compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, The Boston Globe reports. 

Bush's family ties, underscored by the report, are likely to be both an asset and a liability in a 2016 campaign. Recent scrutiny has focused on how his brother's foreign policy might influence his own.

He told the newspaper in an email about the house, "I'm incredibly blessed to be [former President George H.W. Bush] and Barbara's son and am thankful that they have built a special place for their family to gather." His father said that "the blessed arrival of great-grandkids and everything that comes with that made us realize we needed to expand our accommodations in order for me to preserve something called 'domestic tranquility'—and so our entire family could be here without exception."

Unidentified Jeb Bush aides told the newspaper he won't have an ownership stake in the home—and noted that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has houses in New York and Washington.

The Bush family has deep ties to the Maine town, vacationing and golfing there and, for George H.W. Bush, even attending the same-sex wedding of a local store owner and her wife in 2013. Jeb Bush is the last of his siblings to get a house at the compound, according to the newspaper; "initiated for him by" his parents, it will be 3,000 square feet and was assessed at $1.4 million.