In a real estate transaction that was completed this week, former Secretary of State John F. Kerry has purchased a historic waterfront property at Seven Gates Farm in Chilmark.

Acting through a private realty trust, Mr. Kerry paid $11.75 million for 18.5 acres and a house overlooking Vineyard Sound.

John Kerry during a visit to the Vineyard in 1994 when he was a U.S. senator. — Mark Lovewell

The sellers are Michael C. Fulenwider, representative of the estate of Constance Morrow Fulenwider, and Michael C. Fulenwider, Anne M. Fulenwider, and Wendy F. Liszt. All are relatives of Margot Wilkie, whose parents were the original owners of the property. Mrs. Wilkie died in 2013. The property went on the market last July with an asking price of $13.95 million.

The seven-bedroom house dates to 1924 and sits on one of 39 original sites that were created over time by the Seven Gates Farm Corporation on land originally collected by Nathaniel Shaler in the 19th century. Mr. Shaler was a Harvard geologist who fell in love with the land in that area of the Vineyard. The farm includes a large expanse of unspoiled morainal forest and farmland as well as north shore beachfront spanning West Tisbury and Chilmark.

The sale transaction was recorded on March 6, sending a $235,000 fee to the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank.

Mr. Kerry has long summered on Nantucket, where his wife Teresa Heinz has owned a family home near Brant Point since 1982. That property has been on the market since last spring with an asking price of $25 million, according to the Inquirer and Mirror, a weekly newspaper on Nantucket. Mr. Kerry and Ms. Heinz were married on Nantucket.

Property has distant views of the Elizabeth islands.

The Seven Gates Farm property is tucked into a rolling hillside with distant views of the Elizabeth islands, where Mr. Kerry, a member of the Forbes family on his mother’s side, has long ties.

Elizabeth Bramhall’s Seven Gates Farm, The First One Hundred Years, recounts a brief the history of the house, built by Katherine Loines following the death of her husband Russell Loines in 1922. Willoughby Webb and Charles Leavitt were the designers, and decided to sink the house into the hilltop. Bobbie Dreier, Mrs. Wilkie’s sister, recalled for the book that her mother painted the floors white, and found a way to use things that came ashore. “Just when they needed porch furniture, some washed ashore,” she said.