Restoring The Cedar Point Lighthouse

There’s a painting, filled with wonderful detail, of shellfish perched on a windowsill, a vast stretch of water running out to a line of land behind them. The shells of a crab and a lobster, plus oysters, scallops and mussels, are rendered faithfully and realistically, in tones of brown and tan and white. The plump meat of a softshell clam glistens and seems begging to be eaten.

On the land a couple of miles in the distance is a white gesture that represents the façade and steeple of the Old Whalers’ Church in Sag Harbor, and the windowsill upon which all the shellfish perch is in the lighthouse that sits on what was then called Cedar Island.

It’s a meditation, in a way, of the quiet pace of life that once existed, and the priorities of the people who lived it.

The painter, Hubbard L. Fordham, would have had plenty of time to not only execute the work, called “Portrait of Shellfish: A View From Cedar Island Lighthouse Looking Toward Sag Harbor,” but also to collect and consume all of the specimens he painted. Hubbard was one of a long line of keepers who once brought life to the lighthouse, which now sits vacant and vandalized but is poised for restoration.

The spirits of those who had Fordham’s job may linger still. Looking at the building, perched out on a spit of land separating Shelter Island Sound from Gardiners Bay, it is not hard to imagine the 19th century and early 20th century mariners who benefited from its guiding light, and the men who maintained it.

There was Charles Mulford, the thump of whose pegleg could be heard as he climbed the four stories of steps each day, with buckets of oil he had fetched from a nearby oil house, to feed the lantern that burned at the top of the lighthouse’s tower.

William Wallace Tooker, one of the era’s earliest and most prolific photographers, could have taken the opportunity to circumnavigate the light regularly on the tiny 2-acre island, recording on glass plate negatives the lighthouse’s many moods.

And Mary Edwards, the only woman among 16 men, briefly took charge of

ensuring sailors’ safe passage after her husband, keeper Nathaniel Edwards, died.

These keepers shared responsibility for two lighthouses built on the island; the first, a wooden structure, was built in 1838. When it became clear that the wood structure could no longer support its cast iron lantern, a new structure was erected in 1868 and exists today, made of granite shipped in from Falls River, Massachusetts.

And while the granite lighthouse and keeper’s quarters have suffered in the past nearly five decades since the building’s interior was burned by vandals and abandoned, planning for a rehabilitation that would honor keepers past has been in the works for several years.

Commencing in fits and starts, the goal is that the Cedar Point Light will join the many other lighthouses in the Northeast that have been restored and reused, some converted into private homes, and some opened for tours and even for an overnight stay.

The Cedar Point Lighthouse has many relatives — cousins and sisters — along Long Island Sound and up the Hudson River. It appears the mid-19th century was a busy time for replacing older lighthouses, and one of the more popular designs used by the federal government was what the U.S. Lighthouse Museum refers to as the Victorian Gothic — although architect Lee Skolnik prefers Romanesque — style evinced in our local beacon.

The man in charge of overseeing the restoration of Cedar Point Light, Skolnik, of Sag Harbor and New York City, and his firm, have done commercial and residential projects around the world. The firm has a specialty in museum and interpretive projects, like the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton, and, appropriately, the U.S. Lighthouse Museum on Staten Island.

As part of his research, Skolnik and I joined friend and Sag Harbor mayor, Jim Larocca, aboard Larocca’s Grand Banks trawler, “Bojangles V,” for a cruise out of Sag Harbor up to Noank, Connecticut, to tour the lighthouse at the mouth of the Mystic River. The lighthouse there is owned by a friend of Larocca’s and has been restored and renovated into a private home.

Built the same year as the Cedar Point Light, 1868, it is what Skolnik might call a “cousin” of the local lighthouse, sharing the same Victorian Gothic or Romanesque style, but with several different design differences.

Approaching the Mystic River, on our way to put in at Noank Shipyard, a short way upriver of the light, one design difference is immediately apparent: The tower of the light is right up the center of the façade of the house. At Cedar Point, the tower is tucked into a corner of the building.

“The asymmetrical tower is probably one of the most distinctive features of Cedar Point Lighthouse,” said Skolnik. “And they put the tower in the right place — it’s not facing Sag Harbor.”

Other differences reveal themselves once we have come onto the property and begin to look at it more closely.

“The Noank light is much more ornamental,” observed Skolnik, pointing out detail in the cornices. “Ours is quite spare.” This may be as a result of the sophistication of the masons doing the work, said Skolnik, who added that most lighthouses were erected by local crews.

“When I studied the Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals of Europe, even though there was a master builder, details like that were determined by the skills of the masons,” said Skolnik. “If you look at colonial and precolonial architecture out here, they were incredibly spare.”

Lighthouses are romantic structures when viewed from the water, typically perched out on points or bluffs or islands, thrust into the sea. Inside the Noank lighthouse — known as the Morgan Point Lighthouse — it is no less romantic, with panoramic views of the river and Long Island Sound from almost every room. The residents and their guests are treated to a steady stream of vessels of all shapes and sizes slowly gliding up the river toward the historic port of Mystic, its shops, restaurants and restored maritime village.

Truthfully, the house has been renovated to a level of comfort and style that a working lighthouse would likely never have enjoyed. The wood floors are highly polished, there is a full kitchen, and the living area was enlarged by an addition off the back many years ago, including a large room with a bank of windows looking over the river. While the accommodations in the actual lighthouse building are compact, the addition gives the whole building a much more spacious feel.

Up two flights of stairs there are bedrooms that look as if they came from the pages of a home style magazine. And, finally, at the top, up a steep and narrow set of steps, is the lantern room, where once shone the actual light, but which now houses a pair of comfortable couches and a fully stocked bar. The views are 360 degrees.

The owner of the house, a former Navy man who had served with Larocca in Vietnam, has decorated the house with, unsurprisingly, a marine theme. Ship’s name plates are mounted on walls throughout, and his large collection of ship’s bells line the stairway up to the first floor.

And while the interior and the surrounding landscaping of the Morgan Point Lighthouse are admittedly well beyond what a working lighthouse might feature, it illustrates the potential for a lighthouse’s restoration once it comes into private hands.

Cedar Point Lighthouse, for example, had a much different life after it was decommissioned in 1934, when an automated light on a smaller skeletal tower out near the point did away with the need for a keeper.

Three years later, the government sold the property, then an island, to Phelan Beale, for $2,002. Beale reportedly intended to convert the lighthouse into a hunting lodge for his adjacent hunting preserve, the Grey Goose Gun Club of Cedar Point, but never did. At least some of the land that the club was on ultimately became part of Cedar Point Park.

The 1938 hurricane changed the landscape to such a degree by filling in the bar of sand between the island and the mainland, creating a long spit of land, that it then became known as Cedar Point.

It is unclear how Beale ultimately used the property, but after his death, his wife, Edith Beale — the aunt of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, made famous in the movie “Grey Gardens” — sold the property to Isabel Bradley for use as a summer house.

John Parker, who grew up in Sag Harbor and today serves on the village’s Harbor Committee, remembers as a teen, in about 1965, running his boat out to the lighthouse to help bring provisions to Bradley and her husband. At the time, the upland landowner denied the Bradleys permission to cross his land to drive out onto the spit, so the only way to access the lighthouse was by water.

“There were a bunch of us who would do it,” said Parker in an interview recently. He recalled bringing large containers of fresh water out to the light, and “big bags of dog food” to feed the pair of large dogs the Bradleys kept.

Parker would also regularly pick the Bradleys up and run them into Sag Harbor so they could shop, or drive to Southampton where they had a home.

“I would get them in the morning, and then wait around at the yacht club until they were ready to go back in the afternoon,” he said.

There is little he recalls about the interior of the lighthouse, although he did say he can remember either a mural or wallpaper in the dining room of a scene of sailboats on the water.

Skolnik said there was likely a living area on the ground floor, and then a bedroom or two on upper floors. There is a hole in the wall where a wood-burning or coal stove was likely vented.

A fact sheet from Suffolk County indicates that there were nine rooms in about 1,692 square feet of living space in the 2½-story granite block house, excluding the 822-square-foot cellar. The tower stands four stories.

The property was eventually sold to the county by the Bradleys in 1967 to become part of the recently created Cedar Point County Park.

In a report by Robert Muller, author and founding president of the Long Island Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society, one visitor to the lighthouse at that time noted: “the lighthouse still was intact, its hardwood interior having the appearance of a mansion.”

Today, the interior resembles anything other than a mansion.

Without any security or occupants, it had become a hangout for kids for years. In 1974, vandals broke into the lighthouse and set it on fire. The dwelling’s roof was replaced after the fire, but the windows were simply bricked up by the county.

A recent tour of the lighthouse’s interior with Skolnik, Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming and Suffolk County Department of Public Works Commissioner Joseph Brown, and others, revealed a latticework of scaffolding, temporary floors and metal stairs throughout the building. The granite structure is, at this point, just a shell.

“We’ve erected the scaffolding to keep the walls from falling out,” said Skolnik.

There is a mix of masonry throughout, representing the original granite block structure, plus repairs, patches and attempts at securing the building over the years, including, brick and cinder block.

From the water, you can see a distinctive round window in the tower, but a closer look on the inside shows that it is bricked up — one of the features Skolnik hopes to see repaired.

And walking up the temporary stairs through the four stories to the deck of the tower, you can easily see evidence of the fire that tore through the building. Charred stumps from floor joists jut out from the slots in the granite wall designed to hold them in place.

At the top of the stairs is a hatch which leads out onto the platform where the lantern house sat. It was removed several years ago for restoration — and as a marketing device to attract contributions for the restoration of the lighthouse. Today, it sits on a property across from the Sag Harbor Yacht Yard on the village’s Bay Street, waiting to go back up.

There is no power at the lighthouse, so a portable generator lights a chain of electric work lights. On the outside, there is evidence that there is still vandalism occurring. The steel door is pocked with graffiti, and even as we entered the building, there was evidence that the lock on the door had been damaged. The granite piece where the date, 1868, had been carved over the door is damaged, and the building, with its windows blocked up with brick, gives the appearance that it is asleep.

Yet, despite its condition, hope remains that a restoration will breathe new life into the lighthouse, perhaps as a bed-and-breakfast, in the way so many other lighthouses have experienced a second life. An example would be the Saugerties Lighthouse up the Hudson — a sister lighthouse, including the asymmetrical tower, except it is built of red brick rather than granite.

The Saugerties Lighthouse, at the intersection of the Esopus Creek, where the B&B’s website encourages visitors to “experience the rustic simplicity of over a hundred years ago,” is accessible by a half-mile nature trail. The lighthouse and the surrounding grounds are maintained by the Saugerties Lighthouse Conservancy.

It features a sitting room and parlor, which guests use as a common room, a kitchen, and keeper’s quarters. There are two bedrooms on the second floor, one of which has windows that look down the river and out onto the Catskill Mountains. The other looks east toward the river.

Larocca and his wife, Dale, stayed overnight there about 10 years ago. He described the accommodations as “plain,” and probably very much in keeping with how it may have looked at the turn of the last century.

“They have done a lot to make it as authentic as can be,” he said.

“There were terrific views of the Hudson,” he added, and noted that the room he and his wife had featured windows looking across the river to the bank on the other side, and a large wetland. He recalled a “hearty” breakfast, and the house filled with the aroma of fresh coffee and muffins baking.

Walking out to the house can be a little tricky at times, especially during a very high tide, where you were likely to get your feet wet crossing a small footbridge out to the tiny island where the lighthouse sits. Another small walkway leads out to a sitting area at the tip of the peninsula.

There is no air-conditioning, but it is heated in the winter by a coal stove. The website says popular activities include bird watching, fishing and photography. Breakfasts are included in the overnight stay.

The history is not dissimilar to that of the Cedar Point Lighthouse. An original lighthouse was built at the site in 1835 but then replaced in 1869 by the existing structure. One key difference is that the Saugerties light, after becoming automated and de-staffed in 1954, was reactivated in 1990 and is currently considered operational.

For mariners making the trip from the East End and up the Hudson to the Saugerties Lighthouse, there are a host of “relatives” they could pass, including the Oldfield Light, the Stratford Shoal Light, the Coxsackie Light, the Rondout Light, and the light at Execution Rocks, which is roughly halfway between Cedar Point and Saugerties and, according to various web posts, also can be rented for overnight accommodations.

The visit out to Cedar Point light in April seems to have moved the restoration efforts forward. The county has pledged $3.5 million for the project, but that is limited to securing the building and its infrastructure, ultimately delivering it to an organization that would take responsibility for completing its interior, and funding and managing its future use, which some have suggested could be a B&B, or a museum, or some combination.

“It’s still going to be a multi-year project,” said Skolnik.

The project seemed to have stalled, and it had become evident that some serious structural issues had begun to develop, including walls beginning to bow out.

“My goal, since it had been languishing, was to make sure it wasn’t crumbling,” Fleming said in a recent interview.

To date, about $600,000 has been spent in securing the building, and another $500,000 is in the immediate pipeline to commence the first phase of work, which will include restoring and repointing all the stone work.

“I would like to get the lantern back up as well,” said Skolnik, who has completed final construction plans for the county, which is expected to put them out for bid this month. Work at the site could begin this fall. “It will be at least three years or so before the work we have designed is done,” he said.

Beyond that, it will be some other body that will need to take responsibility for completing the interior. Skolnik said he has been speaking with Steven Long of the East Hampton Historical Society and East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc about becoming involved.

“I will get someone to take this on, even if it takes years,” said Skolnik. “You need die-hard boosters to see this through.”

One group that has been involved for about a decade is the Friends of the Cedar Island Lighthouse, which now has a website under the organization name The Cedar Island Lighthouse Restoration Project, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization working to raise funds for the future of the lighthouse. The Suffolk County Legislature has an agreement with the organization through 2029 and has authorized it to operate the lighthouse after the restoration is complete.

The county’s funding will include improvements to the point where the public can access the building safely, said Fleming. “Any repurposing of the building would be up to them,” she said, referring to the Friends.

According to the agreement, the Friends will have two rooms to use for a B&B, as well as keeper’s quarters.

“Our charge is to make it a wonderful Bed & Breakfast for people to enjoy and temporarily live in a piece of history,” reads a section on the organization’s website, “almost as though you were a lighthouse keeper.”