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Kennedy clan barred from historic Hyannis Port lawn

OUT-OF-TOUCH FOOTBALL: The Edward M. Kennedy Institute wants an end to the storied touch-football games that featured Bobby and Ethel (inset) on the late Teddy’s lawn. (Getty Images)

Hey, Kennedys, keep off the grass!

The Hyannis Port lawn where the political clan famously played football is off limits these days to relatives unless they pay rent, as a family feud over the Edward M. Kennedy Institute simmers.

The institute is supposed to carry on Ted Kennedy’s legacy with a 40,000-square-foot facility at the University of Massachusetts campus in Boston. But it also now owns the main house in the Kennedy compound — the storied home of Joe and Rose Kennedy where the family gathered in good times and in bad.

Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, donated the home to the Institute in January, as per Ted and Rose’s wishes, and decreed that other Kennedy family members who want to use the lawn or the pool and tennis courts will have to come to a rental agreement with the nonprofit.

The institute has already rejected a request to allow singer Taylor Swift to stay at the 9,055-square-foot mansion. The 22-year-old country star is in a budding romance with Conor Kennedy, 18, the eldest son of Bobby Kennedy Jr. and his late wife, Mary.

“It is to be used for the purpose of holding educational seminars and forums,” said Debra DeShong Reed, a spokeswoman for the EMK Institute. “It is not for rent by private individuals.”

In a January 2012 press release, the institute said the family would have “limited usage of the property going forward” and “limited access to the grounds for recreational purposes.”

They will, however, be able to access the beach, thanks to “longstanding easements.”

The 21-room house on Cape Cod overlooking Nantucket Sound is the centerpiece of what became known as “the Kennedy compound.” Robert Kennedy Sr.’s widow, Ethel, owns the house across the street, and John and Jackie Kennedy once summered in a nearby home. JFK’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and her husband, Sargent Shriver, lived a few blocks away.

Ted Kennedy inherited the main house, built in 1915, after his mother died, and he was living there when he died of brain cancer in 2009.

Now it appears the family is battling over how the property, and Ted Kennedy’s legacy, will be managed.

Kennedy’s sons, Ted Jr. and Patrick, apparently feel Vicki Kennedy is controlling the institute, relying too much on a small group of the senator’s friends, and undercutting its bipartisan spirit, a family friend of the Kennedy kids told The Boston Globe.

The mission of the EMK Institute for the United States Senate is to provide educational programs on government and democracy, and the new UMass facility, under construction, will include a mock-up of the Senate chambers.

The EMK Institute is to open in 2014. It received $32 million in government grants in 2010, according to tax filings.

The group’s tax filings show it spent $753,575 on “collectibles” in 2010. The items were donated to the institute, and the amount was the appraised value of Andy Warhol prints from Kennedy’s 1980 campaign and 752 copies of his book, “True Compass,” DeShong Reed said. She declined to discuss the family feud.