Browsing: lighthouses

Cruising Life
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Chesapeake Light Sells for $150,000

After a flurry of last-minute bidding, a 150-year-old lighthouse marking the entrance to Baltimore from the Chesapeake was auctioned for $150,000 earlier this week. The lighthouse is still an active aid to navigation, operated by the Coast Guard, but no one has lived there since 1964 when it was automated. The auction involved only the lighthouse, and not the water under it, and the interior needs some work. The auction notice says that there are no public utilities available. The lighthouse is officially the Craighill Channel Lower Range Front Light Station, marking the mouth of the Patapsco River, about two…

Cruising Life
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L.I. Sound Lighthouse: Yours for $360,000

The Penfield Reef Light, about 1 mile off the beach in Fairfield, Connecticut, in Long Island Sound, is for sale at a government auction. The going price so far: $360,000. If you buy it, that’s just the starting price. The lighthouse was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, although the government has worked to restore it, adding a new roof and hurricane-resistant windows. Still, the interior is definitely in the “fixer-upper” stage. Indeed, the Government Services Administration website announcing the auction says “THE CONDITION OF THE PROPERTY IS NOT WARRANTED.” The Penfield Reef Light, marking a submerged reef that’s mostly…

Destinations
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Oregon Lighthouse for Sale: $6.5 Million

If you’ve ever dreamed of living in a lighthouse, now’s your chance. The Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, about 1.2 miles off the coast of Northwest Oregon, is for sale for $6.5 million. Before you reach for your checkbook, you need to realize the lighthouse comes with some problems. First, you can’t land a boat there; there are too many rocks and steep cliffs. You can only come and go via helicopter, and even then you might have to make a second or third pass to get the sea lions off the landing pad. Second, it’s a mess. Opened in 1881, the…

Cruising Life
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Thom Drew: The Last Lighthouse Keeper

Why a Nova Scotian couple refused to leave their island paradise (From The Globe and Mail) The waters around Mosher Island can be treacherous, and it was Thom Drew’s job to help ships navigate them – until the Coast Guard automated lighthouses like his. He and his wife are still there, living a solitary and hard-working life, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. The sea that thrashes at the rocks along Nova Scotia’s South Shore has claimed hundreds of ships since record keeping began here. On a recent Monday morning, it took one more – Anne Drew’s little…

Cruising Life
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Want To Buy a Lighthouse? The Government Will Be Selling Six in the Florida Keys

Who doesn’t love a lighthouse? Well, the federal General Services Administration, for one. The Coast Guard has designated six lighthouses in the Florida Keys as “excess,” so the GSA is looking to unload them. A lot of people are not happy about that. Read the full story in the Miami Herald: From Carysfort Reef off Key Largo to Sand Key in the Lower Keys, the future of five of the six lighthouses that once kept ships from crashing into the Florida Keys’ coral reef is uncertain. The U.S. Coast Guard, which oversees the lighthouses, has declared Carysfort, Sand Key, as…

Cruising Life
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144-Year-Old Chesapeake Lighthouse For Sale: $15,000, As Is

It’s hard to beat this for waterfront property, but it does need a bit of TLC. The 144-year-old Craighill Channel Lower Range lighthouse, marking the Craighill Channel from the Chesapeake up the Patapsco River into Baltimore, is for sale for only $15,000, so you probably would have some money left over for remodeling. The lighthouse has been empty since 1964, when the keeper and his assistant moved out after the light was automated. Some of the interior is open to the elements; birds live there now. The good news is that the keeper’s quarters rise one and a half stories…