Cedar Island Lighthouse To Become Bed And Breakfast

Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman and Michael Leahy, the chairman of the Cedar Island Lighthouse Restoration Committee, climbed aboard Southampton resident Drevet Hugel’s boat, Lolita, last Wednesday morning to take a look at the Cedar Island Lighthouse.

The 146-year-old lighthouse at Cedar Island County Park might be transformed into a two-bedroom bed-and-breakfast, thanks to an agreement that the county and the restoration committee came to last week.

The nonprofit committee, which is composed of eight people who are members of the Long Island Chapter of the United States Lighthouse Society, is trying to raise funds to renovate the Cedar Island Lighthouse so that it can be celebrated as part of East Hampton and Sag Harbor’s heritage.

All revenues from the B&B will go toward the maintenance and upkeep of the lighthouse—but getting to that point is the battle, according to Mr. Leahy.

On the boat on Wednesday, Mr. Leahy outlined the plan, saying the nonprofit would have to raise about $2 million in order to renovate the lighthouse, which is just bare bones right now.

Last November, Lighthouse Inc. and crews from Chesterfield Associates and the Bob Coco Construction Corp. traveled by boat from Long Wharf in Sag Harbor to Cedar Point, about three miles, to take down the lighthouse’s lantern in order to restore it. The lantern currently sits in the Sag Harbor Yacht Yard awaiting a face-lift.

Mr. Leahy said the plan is to blast all the rust off the 7,000-pound steel lantern, coat it in black paint to resemble its original color, and replace the glass windows. He said that job will likely cost $35,000.

Currently, a U.S. Coast Guard tower does the job the lighthouse used to, and there are no plans to use the old lantern, which was decommissioned in 1934. The lantern will be reinstalled, however, and the lighthouse will be restored bit by bit, starting in 2015.

Windows need replacing, the building’s structure needs to be repaired and the inside, which has seen its share of devastation, will be restored to accommodate the B&B.

Mr. Schneiderman said there is $50,000 earmarked in the county’s capital budget in 2015 for the lighthouse’s roof to be replaced, as well.

The lighthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places, because it protected mariners entering Sag Harbor, starting in 1839, when Sag Harbor was bustling with the whaling business. It was one of 22 lighthouses built from 1798 to 1912 between Coney Island and Fisher’s Island, and is one of only a few of those still standing, according to the U.S. Lighthouse Society.

In 1868, the original wooden lighthouse at Cedar Island was replaced with the current Boston granite structure.

During its lifetime, the lighthouse has endured the Hurricane of 1938, a fire in 1974 that totaled its interior and, most recently, vandalism.

Following the restoration, the county will hire a lighthouse keeper to manage the B&B. Mr. Leahy said he envisions the B&B and lighthouse to be a low-key getaway and a tourist attraction. “We’re not thinking this will be upscale,” he said.

“It’s so remote and easy to get to by water, not so by land,” Mr. Leahy added, noting that from mid-March to mid-August driving and walking to the lighthouse is not allowed because of endangered piping plover nests around the peninsula. He said it is about one and a quarter miles to walk to the lighthouse through Cedar Island County Park.

The bed-and-breakfast may be modeled after the Saugerties Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast, which is located about 40 miles from Albany, according to Mr. Leahy. That lighthouse, built in 1869, has two bedrooms which go for about $275 per night and also has the same design as the Cedar Island Lighthouse.

“The lighthouse keeper will have to be a chef as well,” Mr. Leahy said. “I think what is unusual about this is that the bed-and-breakfast, its ground level, is to be kept open as well to the public.”

He said he hopes the lighthouse will team up with a local ferry service to take tourists to the point at least once a day from Sag Harbor.

Mr. Schneiderman, who is the chairman of the county’s parks committee, said Mr. Leahy approached him about the lighthouse and the roadblocks the organization had been facing to raise money to restore it.

“It was sad in a way to see a historical county building falling apart,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “We tried to figure out a way the county and the non-profit could have the confidence to raise $1 million or more. The bed-and-breakfast is a way to continue to upkeep it and keep it self-sustaining. We are thrilled there’s someone out there like Michael to take on a project of this magnitude.”

Mr. Leahy said he woke up one morning and saw a TV show on the History Channel about restoring lighthouses. When he found out that the Long Island Chapter of the U.S. Lighthouse Society was working on restoring Cedar Island’s lighthouse, he jumped at the opportunity.

“This is a wonderful part of maritime and Sag Harbor history,” he said as the boat pulled away from the lighthouse. “In the end, what’s left of us? This is something that will remain.”