Pink House Perk Up Goes VIRAL!

By Rochelle Joseph

The public was pretty excited to see the Pink House getting a little bit of paint last week. The post about it on our two Facebook pages, Save the Pink House Discussion Group and Save the Pink House, went viral, with close to 300 shares from our pages alone, some of which went to other "watering hole" places and got further shared from there!

Some of those were: Newburyport.com (with 113 further shares), Amesbury Squawks (with extra kudos going to Amesbury Industrial who supplied the paint), Newburyport Commons (19 more shares), PI Surfcasters, The Coastal Lifestyle, Re/MAX Realtors, The Plum Island life, The Cunningham Farmhouse and Joppa Newburport MA.

So wonderful to see all this love and interest!! If you want to stay up on  the progress of the Pink House or help in some way when the time comes, please join our two FB pages Support The Pink House and Save The Pink House Discussion Group. You can also sign up to volunteer when we need help right here on this website under the CONTACT tab.

Here's that Facebook Post!

The Pink House is getting some love today, thanks to the OK by the Refuge to Support The Pink House's requests.  MANY thanks go to Bill Peterson, Refuge Manager, PH Board Advisor Bill Barrett and his crew from Plum Island Management for doing the work, and to PH Board Advisor Greg Jardis and his company Amesbury Industrial Supply for donating the paint!!  No, we are not allowed to paint the whole house - it is federally owned and not ours to do that. But we do work WITH the Refuge, and have been since 2015, as part of the incalculable daily hours committed from our personal time pursuing solutions behind the scenes -- solutions we just can't expound upon at this time. But this is just one visible sign of the fruit of that work. 

In fact, several times a year, STPH asks for certain things to keep the house secure through Nor'Easters and winter months, spring greening and summer tourist season.  As part of her pre-winter upkeep we asked that the skirt running around the front 3/4 of TPH (most of which is actually an external, but enclosed porch) be replaced or repaired and painted. We asked that the front porch windows be painted as well and that they fix the half-up, half down shades to be consistent. We hope this will spruce her up a little - and that big vine that in 2017 we requested be cut at the base (to die rather than rip it off her clapboard) is dry enough to come off without doing damage. 

This fall, we discussed a variety of items to be done both internally and externally by the Refuge - and it IS being done. We're thrilled to have increased maintenance and upkeep on behalf of the community, and this progress is accomplished at our closed meetings with the Refuge +  local, state and federal officials and organizations. Read more on our blog at SupportthePinkHouse.com. 

Each year Barrett and Peterson do a walk through from the tip of the cupola to the basement floor and amazingly, no matter how faded she looks from outside, her bones remain strong. No leaks from the roof, no cracks in the foundation, all windows even and walls balanced. And no, her basement did not flood when the PI Pike did in the spring trifecta of Nor'Easters. Apparently, they knew how to build 'em in the 1920's!