“Kirstie had a big Kennedy-compound-style house on the water,” he recalls, “and wanted everyone to move there. So we looked at all these blue-blood homes. I loved them but knew they wouldn't cut it size-wise for my whole family. She said, 'Well, there is another,' and we came to this house. When I saw it, I said to Kirstie, 'Why did you withhold this? It's a fairy-tale house.”

Preston had the same reaction a few months later when Travolta took her there. “The moment we drove up under that wonderful natural look of trees covering the driveway, I said, 'This is it.'”

Built in 1903 by architects Peabody and Stearns for the scion of a prominent banking family, the abode came not only with space and pedigree but with originality, since the front façade has Tudor Revival elements – an unusual twist for a Shingle Style house.

Upon closing the sale in September, the couple immediately sent out invitations for Christmas to fifty-five of their collective family members. “It was wild,” Travolta recalls with a smile. “You could see the potential of the house – in terms of the quality of the wood and craftsmanship, it's built like a yacht – but there was so much to do. The first month we had to install a hotel-size furnace system and have the kitchen redone.” Not to mention the attic, which the couple gutted and rebuilt into “a children's fantasy-land,” complete with stage, schoolroom, playroom and a series of thematic bedrooms: the Princess Room, the Airplane Room, the Peter Pan Room.

That done, the Travolta's turned their attention to furnishings. “Fortunately, the house was already full of English antiques,” says Travolta, “thirty percent of which we refurbished and still use.”