The light is restored.
After a $5.7 million, 13-month rehabilitation project, the Point Reyes National Seashore last Friday re-opened the lighthouse that has marked the rocky edge of the Point Reyes peninsula since 1870.
The project, funded by visitor use fees, included a restoration of the original, Fresnel lens, whose 1,032 individual glass prisms bend and refract light to create a powerful beam.
Working at the seaside site over the course of the year, a professional lampist disassembled, cleaned and repaired the lens that came to Point Reyes by ship from France in the 1800s.
Contractors replaced the roofing of the structure and the external windows surrounding the lens, repaired water and rust damage, cleaned all cast iron and wrought iron components and laid on a fresh layer of paint.
An emphasis of the project was to improve accessibility: the pathway from the parking lot to the observation deck set above the lighthouse was expanded and paved in concrete.
Addressing a structural deficiency, five steps were added to the steep descent from the observation deck down to the lighthouse, for a new total of 313 steps.
The last phase of the project is awaiting another batch of funds. Workers will install new exhibits throughout the site, including tactile models of birds, new signage in braille and digital flipbooks of the area’s flora and fauna with audio captioning.
Originally, the project was meant to wrap up in the spring, but it was delayed by both the difficulty of the restoration and the harshness of the weather at the site, which juts into the open ocean at the foot of a rocky cliff.
“We probably could have built a whole new lighthouse in less time than it took to repair this one,” said Paul Engel, the park’s acting chief of cultural resources. But the lighthouse has been listed as a historic landmark on the National Historic Register since 1991, along with many of the lighthouses on the California coast, mandating a certain ethic of preservation.
The elements also presented a challenge: scaffolding erected around the construction blew off more than once in the past year due to heavy winds, Mr. Engel said.
The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1975, when the United States Coast Guard installed a solar-powered light and automated foghorn. Those instruments remain in service today, stationed in a tiny, far less glamorous building that stands below the original structure.
Rangers will now resume their demonstrations of turning on the original light for the public, a highlight of the most-visited spot in the Point Reyes National Seashore. (They have to shade over the windows on the ocean-side so that ships at sea don’t glimpse the beam and get thrown off.)
Back in the day, keeping the lighthouse in working condition was a full-time job. Though lit only between sunset and sunrise, the head keeper and several assistants worked around the clock in four six-hour shifts, according to the park service’s history on the site.
Every evening before sunset, the keepers would light the oil lamp and wind the clock mechanism, which is operated by a weighted pulley system.
The clock mechanism was built to provide resistance so that it would take two hours and 20 minutes for the 170-pound weight to descend to the floor of the building. As the weight lowered and the clockwork mechanism’s gears turned, the Fresnel lens would turn so that the light appeared to flash every five seconds—a time signature that indicated to sailors they were near Point Reyes.
Shipped from France and hauled from Drakes Bay by ox in 1867, the lens is the largest size of the mechanism developed by Augustin Jean Fresnel, who revolutionized optic theory with the design in 1823. Putting any household chandelier to shame, it stands nearly 12 feet tall—a work of art.
Before Mr. Fresnel developed the lens, lighthouses used mirrors to reflect light out to sea, shining only up to 12 miles away. After his invention, the brightest lighthouses could be seen all the way to the horizon, about 24 miles.
At Point Reyes, in addition to winding the clockwork mechanism every two hours and 20 minutes throughout the night, the keeper had to keep the lamp wicks trimmed so that the light would burn steadily.
Sometimes the winds were so strong that the keeper, returning from the lighthouse up the hundreds of stairs, had to crawl on his hands and knees in order not to be knocked down. (The highest wind speed recorded at Point Reyes is 133 miles per hour, and 60 mile-per-hour winds are common.)
During the restoration, workers made an interesting discovery after removing a set of wooden panels in the interior: a trove of newspapers from 1929. The five papers were nestled in a wooden box, along with a piece of wood painted with the names of the pair who created the time capsule: lighthouse keeper G.W. Jaehne and his assistant H.W. Miller.
An homage to history in the making, the seashore decided to hide several newspapers behind the new wood paneling, including the issue from the Light that covered that discovery.
The park will celebrate the 149th anniversary of the first shining of the Point Reyes Lighthouse on Dec. 1, keeping the facility open past sunset. Visit nps.gov/pore for more information.
The Fresnel lens was dismantled, cleaned and reconstructed. Cracks and nicks were prevented from spreading, but were left visible.
The lighthouse roof was replaced, but the original copper ball and pinnacle remain in place. Glass has replaced plexiglass on the outside.
The inner workings of the light were cleaned, and replaced when necessary, such as with the cabling that turns the light.
The walkway to the top of the stairs was repaved, making it more safe and accessible. New railings guide visitors to the stairs.