The house at 25 Butler avenue in Oak Bluffs, a gingerbread cottage familiarly known as the Pink House, is beginning a new — and very pink — era. The cottage, a popular subject for Island photographers and a landmark for Camp Ground visitors for decades, went on the market at the end of last week, real estate agents confirmed.

The current owners, Texas natives Brant Weatherford and Maureen McDonald, have owned the property since 2014.

“I’ve always loved this house since seeing it as a teenager,” Ms. McDonald wrote in an email to the Gazette this week. “When it came up for sale in 2014, it didn’t make much sense to buy it as we live in Texas but we took the plunge and have loved it ever since.”

The cottage, nestled just off the Camp Ground’s Rural Circle, is perhaps best known for its pastel pink exterior. With magenta door frames and windowsill and pale pink wooden floors, the house stands out, even among the other colorful gingerbread cottages that dot the Camp Ground.

“People look for the house,” said real estate agent Lisa Lucier of Anchor Realty, who will be selling the property. “It’s on post cards everywhere. They go around the Camp Ground because of it.”

For Ms. McDonald, who plans to sell the home and move into two larger nearby cottages, the real joy of owning the house has been playing a part in its long history on the Island.

The house was first built in 1870, for the first recorded leaseholder, William A. Wood. But the cottage did not formally become the Pink House until the 1940s when NYC-based artist Lillian Cotton bought it for less than $200.

“It was after the Depression and the Camp Ground was in rather shabby shape,” Ms. McDonald wrote.

Ms. Cotton, who was active at the Old Sculpin Gallery in Edgartown — now the Martha’s Vineyard Art Association — was eager to rehabilitate the property and add her artistic flare. Selecting a bold pink color, Ms. Cotton set about renovating the cottage, even painting the interior of the house a matching pink shade.

“The story goes that Lillian Cotton stayed in the cottage the entire time it was being painted pink lest someone try to stop the painting,” Ms. McDonald wrote.

When she finished, Ms. Cotton named the home “Catalaya” after a variety of pink orchid. And the choice, though striking at the time, set the Camp Ground tradition of colorful houses in motion, Ms. McDonald said.

The cottage has been the subject of many well-known photographers, including Alfred Eisenstaedt and Walker Evans. Shots of the cottage appear in historical post cards, including a photo from a stereoscopic card taken in 1870 and a Polaroid from 1970 that is archived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Over the years, the cottage’s various owners have also left small touches through minor renovations. In 1960, owner Jean Spencer, another Camp Ground artist active at the Old Sculpin Gallery, carved a picture window into the side of the house to light the space where she painted her portraits.

But each owner has made sure to keep one essential part of Ms. Cotton’s vision alive — the pink part — repainting the house year after year in different shades and hues of pink.

“The brightest shade of pink was a hot pink that owners Jack and Anita Welles put on the cottage in the 1980s when they renamed the cottage The Wooden Valentine,”  Ms. McDonald wrote.

Ms. McDonald and her family have left a mark of their own, giving the house the nickname Big Pink.

For Ms. McDonald, in the six years she has owned the cottage, preserving its history has been a priority. Recently, Ms. McDonald and Mr. Weatherford have restored the property’s back yard and alleyway to honor its original architecture. In selling the house, too, Ms. McDonald is adamant about educating buyers on the house’s legacy. The family plans to sell the house with some of its original furniture pieces, like a colonial wooden chair that lives in the cottage’s upstairs, as well as paintings by Ms. Spencer.

And while parting with the home will not be easy, Ms. McDonald said she hopes the cottage’s next owners will love Big Pink as much as she and her family have.

“We’ve been charmed to be a part of the Pink House history and know the next family that comes after us will be delighted by it as well,” Ms. McDonald wrote.