KENNEBUNKPORT – An 81-year-old houseguest suffered a fatal heart attack at the summer home of former President George H.W. Bush.

John C. Jansing, the husband of Bush’s cousin Shelley Bush Jansing, was taken by paramedics late Tuesday to the emergency room at Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.

“Jack was a wonderful man,” the former president said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and their three children. Barbara and I will miss him terribly.”

The Jansings lived in Harbor Springs, Mich., and Hobe Sound, Fla.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, traveling with President George W. Bush in Kansas City, Mo., said the president had been informed.