A ‘spite house’ said to have been built by a man for his ex became an icon. Now it’s the center of a demolition battle.

The Pink House, a landmark in Newbury, Massachusetts, was planned to be torn down.

An abandoned house, whose weather-beaten pink paint is pale and peeling, stands alone in the marshes of coastal Massachusetts.

The Pink House, as locals have dubbed it, sits on the side of a highway that leads to the beaches of Plum Island, a barrier island in the Atlantic Ocean about 50 miles north of Boston.

Locals told B-17 that for almost 100 years, the Pink House had been a roadside sign of a good day to come at the beach.

The unassuming “spite house” — said to have been built in 1925 by a divorcé ordered to build a replica of his marital home for his soon-to-be ex-wife — is at the center of a battle between the federal agency that owns it and wants to tear it down and locals who want to save it.

Local residents have banded together to save the Pink House.

The board of directors of Support the Pink House.

The US Fish & Wildlife Service bought the Pink House and 9 acres of marshland around it in 2011 for $375,000 from the last family that owned it.

It planned to demolish it in order to return the land to its original state and support local wildlife.

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, a US Fish and Wildlife refuge about a mile and a half away from the Pink House, is home to more than 300 species, including birds, fish, insects, mammals, and reptiles.

Rochelle Joseph, the president of Support the Pink House, wasn’t about to let the demolition go ahead without a fight. She believes the Pink House is a historic landmark crucial to the fabric of Newbury, Massachusetts.

“If you see the Empire State Building or the Golden Gate Bridge, you know where you are, right,” Joseph said. “For the North Shore of Massachusetts, that’s what this is.”

Locals love to repeat an age-old story about the house being built out of spite.

The marshland surrounding the Pink House.

The urban legend is that the house was built because of a messy divorce: The wife demanded that an exact replica of the couple’s marital home be built after they split, and the husband obliged but placed the home in the middle of a marsh.

Some versions of the story even include a detail about a court order that directed the construction of the home.

Sandy Tilton, a board member of Support the Pink House, said classifying the Pink House as a spite house appealed to people in Newbury and beyond.

“The legend about the Pink House being a spite house has been told for generation after generation after generation,” Tilton told B-17.

Tilton, however, has scoured local libraries for deeds and other records to uncover the home’s true history. She said she couldn’t find any evidence to support the myth that the house was built out of spite.

People lived in the house for decades, but it’s been abandoned since about 2009.

Shoes with the Pink House drawn on them.

The original owner, Gertrude W. Cutter, built the house in 1925 and moved her son Harry and his wife Ruth into the home, Tilton said.

The home sold a few times, and the last non-governmental owners were Milton and Juliette Stott, who purchased the home in 1960.

Tilton said the home was occupied by real residents until about 2009.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service says the house is unsafe.

A close look at the exterior of the Pink House.

When the federal agency first bought the Pink House, its plan was to protect the surrounding land from development and use the house to board seasonal staff.

During an environmental survey, though, it found asbestos and said that the interior living conditions were not up to par.

Joseph blamed the agency for the home’s run-down state.

“It’s in the condition it is now because Fish and Wildlife — some people call it demolition by neglect,” she said.

A spokesperson for the US Fish and Wildlife Service told CBS News that “the decision we made to remove the structure is in the best interest of our conservation mission.”

A last-minute donation to US Fish and Wildlife helped stop a planned demolition — at least temporarily.

The Pink House sits alone on the southern side of Plum Island Turnpike, which leads to the beach.

In October, an anonymous area resident pledged up to $1 million as a donation to the US Fish and Wildlife Service to help address safety concerns to save the home just days before a planned demolition date at the end of October.

“That removes all financial obstacles,” Joseph said. “And the federally elected officials absolutely should be jumping in here and be heroes.”

“While we appreciate the recent generous monetary offer to help maintain the Pink House, we do not believe it affects the current course of action,” the US Fish and Wildlife Service said in an October 30 statement.

Joseph is still optimistic that the funds will reverse the agency’s decision.

“The hope is that these new talks will change things around,” she said. “All we want to do is look forward.”