Newbury Pink House on the way to Plum Island

The Pink House is an uninhabited historic house and popular photography and painting subject located at 60 Plum Island Turnpike, Newbury, Massachusetts, United States. The house was built in 1925 and was privately owned until it was sold to

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge Parker River National Wildlife Refuge is a wildlife sanctuary encompassing the majority of Plum Island in northeastern Essex County, Massachusetts, 5 miles southeast of Newburyport. It was established in 1942 primarily to provide feeding, rest ...

for $375,000 in 2011. The house is considered by many to be a local icon and is the subject of a

grassroots campaign A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

to buy back the property from the refuge to preserve the house.

Origin legend

The house's notoriety is in part due to a popular local urban legend about its creation. The story suggests the house's location was a result of a divorce in which the wife demanded an exact replica of their Newburyport house, but failed to specify the location, resulting in the spiteful husband building it on the edge of town, in the

Great Marsh The Great Marsh (also sometimes called the Great Salt Marsh) is a long, continuous saltmarsh in eastern New England extending from Cape Ann in northeastern Massachusetts to the southeastern coast of New Hampshire. It includes roughly 20,000� ...

with saltwater plumbing. For this reason, the building is often listed as an example of a spite house.

Preservation movement

The refuge, which had originally planned on using the property for seasonal staff housing, completed a preliminary environmental survey of the building in 2014, finding

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

-containing building materials. In 2015, amid community concerns the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge would demolish the property, a group founded by local residents was formed to advocate for the preservation of the house. After initially proposing demolition in 2016, the refuge agreed to postpone to explore alternatives and give time to find a suitable land transfer. In 2018, refuge staff met with members of Essex County Greenbelt, a conservation organization, to discuss the option of a land transfer. In November, 2023, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to demolish the Pink House in the coming months following a period of public comment, citing nearly eight year of unsuccessful land transfer attempts, rising maintenance costs of the degrading building, and the refuge's duty to preserve wildlife. In the proposal, they announced plans to replace the Pink House with a public observation platform to view the salt marsh. Newbury Pink House

References

External links

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge
The

National Wildlife Refuge National Wildlife Refuge System is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to c ...

that owns the Pink House and property.
Support The Pink House
Inc, An organization created to preserve and maintain the Pink House.
Essex County Greenbelt
A land trust attempting to trade land with Parker River National Wildlife Refuge to acquire the Pink House. Houses in Newbury, Massachusetts Houses completed in 1922 American Foursquare architecture Spite houses {{Massachusetts-struct-stub