Lighthouse Purchase...

[Chris Miller]

I got an email from my mother last night that a man from my the town I grew up in (Winona, MN) purchased a lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay (where I currently reside in Solomons MD) at the mouth of the Potomac River. He bought the Smith Point Lighthouse "sight unseen" for under $200k. With plans to fix it up for a vacation home, I might have to call him and see if I can get a tour :egrin:
This lighthouse is about 30 nm south of us in Solomons, close enough that we club race to it and back every year.
I hope this becomes a trend on the bay, so that we can save some of the lights in disrepair... I'd love to buy one and fix it up.
Chris

[erobitaille]

Cool I wouldn't mind living in the Thomas Point Light. Got a tour of it many years ago. I did read some were you can purchase light houses and you have to fix them then operate them for the CG, I think they install any auotmated light.

[Nick Reynolds]

My daughter and I stayed as keepers for a week at the New Dungeness Lighthouse at Sequim, WA. This was in 2001, I am not sure if they still do this or not, but they have a current website: http://people.maine.com/lights/dungenes.htm

It was a good time, but not what I expected. With all the tourists hiking the five miles out the spit to see the lighthouse, and the high demand for the place (we shared it with 4 other folks) it was much more of a social week than I had anticipated. At least at this lighthouse, there is no such thing as the lonely keeper.

[NateHanson]

Cool I wouldn't mind living in the Thomas Point Light. Got a tour of it many years ago. I did read some were you can purchase light houses and you have to fix them then operate them for the CG, I think they install any auotmated light.

A few years ago the CG had a program to give away or destroy dozens of lighthouses up here. You had to start a non-profit and show you could raise enough money to restore and maintain the defunct lighthouses. First dibs was given to community non-profits. Private owners were way way down on the priority list.

A number of lights up and down the coast of Maine are now in the hands of non-profits. Two I know of personally are on Isle au Haut, where the community took over the tower, and the attached keepers house (privately owned) is run as a seasonal inn on this remote island. It's crawling with "lighthouse enthusiasts" complete with lighthouse-print handbags and T-shirts.

Another lighthouse further east, on Little Nash Island, near Machias, ME, is owned by a community non-profit, and the rest of the island is owned by the 200 sheep that an aquantaince of mine raises for wool and meat. He inherited them from a friend named Jenny . . . (forget her lastname), who grew up there as the keepers daughter, lobster fished commercially from age 10 to age 93, and died three months after her last season of lobstering. You can buy a documentary about her entitled "Jenny's Island Life". Google it if you're interested. She sounds like a real character!

Nate

[chrism]

The lighthouse on the breakwater in my town was purchased by the town in the thirties for $1,000, I believe. Sucha deal!

It's now maintained by the Scituate Historical Society. Quite the story goes along with it... Check it out here: http://studentweb.providence.edu/~msabon06/army%20of%20two/armyoftwo.htm