On Massachusetts’ Plum Island, a pale pink house once stood alone above the marsh, looking almost too picturesque for the strange story attached to it. Local legend claimed the unusual home was born from a bitter divorce in the 1920s. According to the tale, a wife demanded that her husband build an exact replica of their family home as part of their divorce agreement. He supposedly agreed, but found a loophole: she had never said where the new house had to be built. So the story goes that he recreated their home on an isolated salt marsh, turning an ordinary marital settlement into an act of revenge. The house even became known as a “spite house”. Yet historical research later cast doubt on much of the legend, revealing a more complicated story of separation, abandonment and an isolated family home that survived for decades.
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