Cleveland Lake Erie lighthouse – Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0
A unique opportunity for a fixer-upper is coming by way of the US General Services Administration (GSA)—6 historic American lighthouses.
Going up this year via public auction, the federal government has a unique way of ensuring lighthouses retain their historic status which can even involve auctioning them off to private citizens with an affection for the now-obsolete structures.
Lighthouses are beautiful, attractive pieces of seaside scenery, although perhaps it’s a tad difficult to explain exactly why it’s almost impossible to find someone not moved by the sight of one.
The US has hundreds of lighthouses that once ensured sailors could safely come into harbor but are now derelict since the invention of GPS technology. The GSA routinely sells off lighthouses to nonprofits interested in conservation, state and local governments, educational agencies, and even federal ones.
However if no buyers come up, the GSA will auction them off to the public at prices ranging from $10,000 to nearly $1 million, reports NPR.
Since the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act was passed in 2000 more than 150 lighthouses have been sold or handed over to various organizations. This includes 81 that are now owned by government agencies and nonprofits and another 70 that have been sold to the public.
“Costs for upkeep of lighthouses are relative to what the new owner plans to do,” the GSA states in a notice of the May 2023 “Lighthouse season”
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“A total restoration could be thousands of dollars while a simple cleaning is much less. New owners should expect to have to paint, clean, and possibly restore broken or missing items. Most lighthouses do not have any utilities, so there would be a cost associated with making the lighthouse livable.”
This year, 6 lighthouses are being placed on Notice of Availability, and 4 are going direct to public auction. Should any of the 6 not find owners, they too will be sold to the citizenry.
These include the Lynde Point Lighthouse, Old Saybrook, Connecticut; Nobska Lighthouse, Falmouth (Woods Hole), Massachusetts; Plymouth/Gurnet Lighthouse, Plymouth, Massachusetts; Warwick Neck Light, Warwick, Rhode Island; Little Mark Island and Monument, Harpswell, Maine; and Erie Harbor North Pier Lighthouse, Erie, Pennsylvania.
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Sales to the public will feature the Penfield Reef Lighthouse, Fairfield, Connecticut; Stratford Shoal Light, East Setauket, New York; Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Light, Cleveland, Ohio; and the Keweenaw Waterway Lower Entrance Light, Chassell, Michigan.
“People really appreciate the heroic role of the solitary lighthouse keeper,” John Kelly of the GSA’s office of real property disposition told AP. “They were really the instruments to provide safe passage into some of these perilous harbors which afforded communities great opportunities for commerce, and they’re often located in prominent locations that offer breathtaking views.”
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