Living in a Lighthouse

Can you live in a lighthouse?

Yes, if it has living quarters and you can power and supply them. Smith Point has four bedrooms in about 1,500 square feet. Middle Ground was listed fully furnished after serving its owners as a vacation cottage. Warwick Neck’s keeper’s house is on land. Some towers offer no living space at all.

Owning a lighthouse to live in is a lifestyle choice with a logistics problem. Every trip depends on a boat, the weather and the tide, and everything you use arrives or leaves by hand.

How do power, water and heat work in a lighthouse?

Offshore lighthouses generate their own power and store their own water. Smith Point runs on a portable generator with a 250-gallon plumbing system and a 550-gallon tank. Middle Ground used solar panels, batteries, a diesel generator, a rainwater cistern and mini-split heating and cooling. The table sets them side by side.

What is daily life like in a lighthouse?

It is small, round and self-reliant. Rooms follow the curve of the tower, so furniture is built to fit. Middle Ground’s owners had a sofa made to curve around the wall. Its stairs spiral between floors, and compass roses are painted on the ceilings because it is easy to lose your bearings climbing them.

Smith Point and Middle Ground both kept an active lamp, and the Coast Guard maintains it, so you live under a working light and leave the equipment to the government.

What did Middle Ground’s owners learn?

Two families bought Middle Ground for $31,000 in 2005 and found a wreck: a door left open, birds inside, rotted floors and a ladder swinging from one bolt. They restored it over three to four years, mostly with volunteer help from friends and their children, and used it as a family vacation cottage.

That is the honest shape of the project. You trade a long, physical restoration for a home no one else has. See the buyer’s checklist for what to settle before you take one on.

Does anyone live in a lighthouse full time?

Some do, with an income. East Brother Light Station in California is run as an inn by resident innkeepers, and Big Bay Point in Michigan has been a bed and breakfast since 1986.

Ask a seller how the current owner uses the lighthouse and what the winter looks like before you assume you will be there in January. Volunteers and innkeepers fill the role described in how to become a lighthouse keeper, and a night’s stay is the cheaper test: see lighthouses you can stay in.