by Elias Dubus
There is a house in Northeastern Massachusetts, alone and perplexing, but beautiful in its bizarre way. It sits twenty yards back from the road, with tattered pink shingles. It’s remote, but completely vulnerable to the eyes of anyone driving on the Newburyport Turnpike to or from Plum Island. In the town of Newbury, Plum Island’s white sand beaches are a huge draw for tourists, boosting the economy of this corner of the state known as the North Shore. The economic angle may be the only way to save a glorious landmark of the region. But this isn’t about money. It’s about a whacky, one-of-a-kind house and the people working to save it.
Every year still, new Save the Pink House signs show up on front lawns in resistance to the increased efforts to tear it down. These calls for destruction became prevalent about a decade ago, right as I was moving away from Newbury for college. It was always unclear to me who was responsible for its potential destruction. But that didn’t matter, because they were wrong, whoever they were. Why would anyone touch that perfect, strange house? Even throughout my years of mischievous youth, I never felt the desire to enter, or even to approach. Its seclusion was its most important attribute.
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The Pink House is the kind of landmark that locals protect with their lives. The grassroots organization Support the Pink House (STPH) has been doing that work for the last eight years.
On October 9th, 2024, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced sudden plans to demolish the Pink House, obliterating the possibility of restoration. They revealed this despite the meticulous, exhaustive measures that STPH had carried out, and been advised to keep under wraps from the public. STPH was in the process of securing a land swap with U.S. Fish & Wildlife, which would have effectively given the Pink House its own property and ensured its security. But they were blindsided by the definitive move, and the Pink House would be a pile of rubble at the time of this writing if Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey had not stepped in three weeks later on October 30th.
Governor Healey has decided to use the financial angle to assist in the effort. In her statement delaying the demolition (pending meetings between the Governor’s Office and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service), she invokes “economy.” This same word appears in the statements of Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, and Representative Kristen Kassner. This is a simple, impenetrable strategy, and it may pay off.
After all, the Pink House is a landmark. What else are landmarks for but drawing in tourists and contributing to an economy?
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I want the Pink House around strictly for its absurdity. Some may have heard of its rumored construction as a “spite house.” This information is probably significant to many around town and the theories are fun. But I say why document the unknowable? I’ve passed this house hundreds, if not thousands of times. All I’ve ever wanted to do was admire it. Why diminish all the possibilities of this empty vessel?
Experts predict that in the next century the sediment of Plum Island will fall away and the whole piece of land will split in two. The odds are overwhelmingly low that the Pink House will live to see this catastrophe. But it has a chance, as the STPH plans to restore it in 2025—the 100-year anniversary of its construction. If this restoration never happens, I at least want to watch the house decay as a part of nature, not see it demolished like any dying manmade thing. In ten years, it may be a stretch to even call it the Pink House; maybe efforts to restore it will fail and it will simply wither away. But, like Plum Island itself, this house’s beauty lies in its inherent impermanence. It may hunch over the years and eventually fade away like we all do. But the Pink House deserves to live out its remaining years for another few generations to witness. If that isn’t worth saving, at least for sentimental value, what is?
You can visit https://www.supportthepinkhouse.com to learn more and contribute to the effort.
Elias Dubus is a second-year MFA student studying fiction at Chatham University.