WASHINGTON — President Bush is hoping that lobster and sailing at his father’s New England retreat today will help to woo President Putin of Russia into putting pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program.

It is the first time that Mr. Bush has hosted a foreign leader at President George H.W. Bush’s summer home on the craggy Maine coast.

Kennebunkport was built by the current president’s great-grandfather, and it is where President George H.W. Bush once held talks with Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Yitzhak Rabin, and Poland’s Lech Walesa.

But his son, anxious to project a homespun Texan image ratherthan remind voters of his family’s blueblood heritage, always preferred to use his own Prairie Chapel Ranch. The younger Mr. Bush famously declared he had been able to “get a sense of [Mr. Putin’s] soul” during their first meeting in 2001 and later entertained the former KGB chief in Texas.

But now, he is reverting to his father’s Cold War formula to rescue a relationship that has soured since those heady early days.

Before he left his dacha outside Moscow, a measured Mr. Putin made clear that he would not be swayed by the carefully arranged atmospherics.

“I hope that my dialogue with a person with whom very good relations have developed inrecent years will have precisely that character,” he said. But he added: “In politics, as in sports, there is always competition. It’s important for these competitions to be conducted under certain rules and with respect for each other’s interests.”

Just as much as Iraq, the Iranian nuclear issue is central to Mr. Bush’s legacy.

The White House is hoping Russia will agree to a tough sanctions package, including freezing the assets of Iranian banks and mandatory inspections of all cargo to and from Iran, designed to put pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Russia’s veto power on the U.N. Security Council and its long-standing trade ties with Iran makes her agreement to the package crucial. However, Mr. Putin has recently lambasted the U.S. for its proposed new missile-defense shield installations within the former Soviet satellites of Poland and the Czech Republic, and its criticism of Moscow’s record on democratic reforms.

The White House views the missile-defense shield as a protection against Iran and other rogue states, while Russia insists it is an attempt to exert influence over former Soviet territories and constitutes an increased security threat.

“There is a great need for extra attention on the highest level,” said Dmitry Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, when asked about the issue. All these sticking points will be discussed inside the Bush family compound, which was built by George H. Bush, a Midwestern banker, in 1903 on a strip of land jutting into the Atlantic.

As well as the nine-bedroom home, which also has four sitting rooms, a library and several patios and decks, the compound includes a four-car garage, a pool, tennis court, dock and spacious lawns. Mr. Putin is believed to be staying in a guesthouse in the grounds.

“Putin spotting” had replaced whale watching as the main pastime in the well-heeled Maine town yesterday, while one watering hole was serving a new rum, pineapple and orange juice concoction called “Putin’s Punch.”

There have been light moments in the Bush-Putin relationship, including the time a grinning president was put behind the wheel of his Russian counterpart’s cherished 1956 Volga, and the occasion when a bemused Russian leader was entertained with square dancing at the Bush ranch.

With the 2008 presidential race already eclipsing much of what Mr. Bush does, and the Russians due to choose a successor to Mr. Putin in March, the meeting is probably the last chance for the two men to rekindle relations in time to produce results.