Out my window, I could see one of New England’s most frequently photographed, sketched, and artistically rendered buildings. Canvas devoted to it over the years would cover it many times.
All by itself on the marsh, the Pink House was built in 1925 under circumstances debated to this day. Some call it an example of “spite architecture.” To comply with a ruling in a divorce case, the story goes, the husband had to provide the wife with a home. Spitefully, he put it near nothing and no one, fully exposed to coastal elements, and out of reach of the electric grid and running water at the time.
True or not, as Rochelle Joseph of Support the Pink House, Inc., claimed while recording a farewell tribute video during the final days, the story attracted international attention. Other tributes told of the resulting increased tourism. Various local groups have long included photos of the Pink House in their brochures.
Joseph also asked anyone listening to look across the marsh aside the house. This is a technique well-known to visual artists that the rest of us never notice: The very unlikeliness of a house on that spot enhances the natural setting surrounding it, much like a barn or tractor on one side will help accentuate rows of crops that fill a photo.
Yes, a farewell to the “Pink Lady” as it will be most fondly remembered. Abandoned about twenty years ago, it was never, as I recall, a candidate for demolition until well after 2010 by the National Fish & Wildlife Service.
Several initial attempts to demolish it were rebuffed by tireless efforts of Support the Pink House, delaying it for several years before running out of options. Demolition began and was completed as I write.
The distance from my window to the site is slightly over a mile as the Canada geese fly, so I was unable to see the vigil or any parked cars—unless you count the flashing blue lights of a police cruiser assigned to slow the increased traffic and make sure that the two-lane road was not bottle-necked.
I hoped to attend, but an about-to-turn-74-year-old body has veto power over any desire of heart or purpose of mind. And so I watched Joseph’s video in real time, along with nonstop emojis and responses expressing regret that came from as far as Ireland, and from people who summer here from all around the US.
Must admit that I have not been involved with the vanguard of Support the Pink House. Ten, twelve years ago I had a few satirical columns in the Daily News ridiculing the idea of demolition. In recent years, I’ve attended a few meetings and signed a few petitions. All of it a far cry from my deep involvement with the Newburyport Public Library’s dismantling of its own, world-acclaimed Archival Center.
No doubt for that reason, one comment on Joseph’s video piqued my interest:
What is happening to the Pink House is symptomatic of what is happening to our country.