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Southeast Lighthouse interior renovation within sight
By Chris Barrett
Block Island Times (Rhode Island)
November 10, 2008
In this dusty room on the first floor of the Southeast Lighthouse sits a Shop-Vac, a wooden table covered in tools, old exhibits and piles of wood. In the middle of it, Pam Gasner stands exuding enthusiasm. “Wouldn’t this be exciting?” she asks rhetorically as she describes her vision for renovating the lighthouse into a museum and a guest suite.
For 23 years Gasner has requested, persuaded and sometimes downright begged residents, corporations and the government to fund the renovation of the interior of the lighthouse that made an historic 250-foot move 15 years ago to save it from the eroding Mohegan Bluffs.
That move stopped the 135-year-old lighthouse from toppling into the sea but left the inside repairs for a later date. This winter the Southeast Lighthouse Foundation, which assumed control of the building from the Coast Guard, plans to request bids to renovate the 2 1/2-story structure attached to the light’s tower. The foundation aims to finish the project by 2010.
On a recent visit Gasner, the foundation’s vice president, went room-to room explaining her vision that would change the old keeper’s quarters into a public space and private suite for overnight guests.
“We’ve got to keep moving” the project along Gasner says.
On the first floor Gasner envisions a museum exhibit detailing the structure’s history, an office for the foundation’s staff and public restrooms. On the second floor the museum would continue on the south side with a private suite including a bedroom, living room, bath and kitchen on the opposite side. The income generated through the suite would help cover the building’s upkeep costs.
Up the narrow staircase to the third floor Gasner foresees extra bedrooms for the suite or rooms for interns. And as for the basement, the sky’s the limit.
Gasner hopes the inside construction is the easy part. After all, she notes that it took not one, but three acts of Congress to move the lighthouse and turn it over the foundation. Then Expert House Movers started a month-long process to move the brick structure to safety and place it on top of a new foundation. Along the way workers repointed bricks, shored up the roof and installed new windows.
But funding to complete the inside took much longer to secure than anyone anticipated. The foundation received about $550,000 through federal Transportation Enhancement funds for renovations two years ago. Combined with about $150,000 in the foundation’s reserves, the federal money provided the boost the foundation needed, but internal turmoil at the state Department of Transportation about how to proceed with the project slowed the process down. Finally, the foundation made the decision to go ahead alone and renovate the inside rather than repair the tower’s cast iron cap.
“You do have to have patience. It does take a long time and its very frustrating,” said Dr. Gerry Abbott, the foundation’s president.
Abbott has climbed these hurdles before. He’s helped put homes on the National Register of Historic Places and has undertaken other restoration projects, including helping to start the ball rolling for the restoration of the North Light. He successfully lobbied Congress to label the Southeast Lighthouse as a National Landmark to open up new funding avenues and courted then U.S. Sen. John Chafee to represent the project in Washington.
Today Abbott said if Block Islanders can move a 2,000-ton building, they can redo the inside.
“Back in the earliest days people thought I was nuts to be pushing the idea,” he said.
But it happened, and then the bank account ran dry and forced the foundation to choose between restoring the cast-iron light enclosure or fixing the inside. Abbott did not dwell long on the decision.
“We want to get the public back in there because that’s really the whole goal of this thing,” he said.
Before the lighthouse moved, the foundation put on an exhibit funded through a $17,000 grant from the Rhode Island Committee on the Humanities that traced the building and the island’s history. The foundation even took the exhibit, called “Rugged and Refined,” on the road around the state. Abbott said he hopes to bring back the exhibit.
But before that can occur, Newport Collaborative Architects must finalize a plan.
Gasner says the delay has been sort of a blessing in disguise. Since architects first sketched out the plans for the renovated structure, foundation members have had second thoughts.
Gasner scuttled an idea to put the guest suite on the first floor, noting that the handicap entrance ramp ran right by what would be the guest’s bedroom. And now she’s doubting a plan to add the entire top floor as part of the suite, thinking instead it might be needed as living space for interns. And she threw out a proposal to spend thousands of dollars putting in air conditioning. “We’ll open a window,” she said.
Despite the funding constraints and slow progress Gasner says she rarely becomes frustrated. She’s simply grateful the lighthouse remains in the hands of a local organization and not under the control of the large and faceless federal government that may not take a particular interest in the structure. She takes particular solace in the words of Rob Lewis, an island conservationist who worked to preserve the island’s history before his death in 2001.
“As long as we have a key we’ll wait for the next generation to renovate it,” he once told Gasner.
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