When Aquinnah town administrator, Jeffrey Madison, was a young boy the Gay Head lighthouse shined directly into his bedroom window. Each night he’d fall asleep to its pattern: three white flashes followed by a red one.
“In those days the trees weren’t quite as high as they are now,” Mr. Madison said. “It really shined in my bedroom window every night. It’s nice to play some part in its rehabilitation.”
On Friday the lights went dark as the town began a six-month renovation project to fix the lighthouse’s curtain wall, lantern deck and replace the existing lantern with an LED bulb. This is the first major renovation since the lighthouse was moved nearly a decade ago to protect it from a rapidly-eroding seaside cliff.
With the current renovation, Mr. Madison saw an opportunity to restore the flash pattern he remembers from his childhood: the same pattern that the original Fresnel lens projected when the lighthouse was built in 1856.
In 1989, the lighthouse lantern was replaced with a DCB-224 halogen lamp, which projected alternating white and red flashes rather than the historical flashing pattern. Mr. Madison said the new LED bulb will preserve the original pattern while also providing a more sustainable source of energy.
“[The LED bulb] uses less electricity, it lasts longer, it’s lighter and it’s brighter,” Mr. Madison said. “All the elements that you would be concerned about are met better by the LED.”
Mr. Madison said when he first asked about restoring the original flash pattern, the U.S. Coast Guard declined his request. But U.S. Sen. Ed Markey heard about the renovation and helped advocate for the change.
ICC Commonwealth, the same company that led the lighthouse move in 2015, is doing the renovation.
Jim Pickman, chair of the Gay Head Lighthouse Advisory Board, said the company will be replacing the long array of windows surrounding the light, commonly referred to as the curtain wall.
“[The curtain wall] is balanced by a plate and when the contractor investigated that, they said, ‘there’s some rusting here. We’ve really got to deal with it,’” Mr. Pickman said.
Mr. Pickman said the renovations will not alter the historic look of the lighthouse.
Chris Manning, who has been the lighthouse keeper since 2021, said the renovation will correct structural issues and also require taking down the lantern deck’s roof and walls.
“They’re not parts you can go to the hardware store and pick up,” said Mr. Manning. “All those parts need to be recast so that we can properly do the restoration.”
Mr. Manning remarked on the long history of the lighthouse and the hard work it took to operate and take care of it.
“When this lighthouse was first built in 1856... every four hours [the lighthouse keepers] would be up there cranking the clockworks that kept the lens rotating throughout the night,” Mr. Manning said. “In the morning, they would have to clean and polish every single one of the 1008 prisms that together made the Fresnel lens.”
Two-thirds of the cost of the renovation was funded by Orsted, a wind farm developer that was required by law to provide certain community benefits due to the wind farm being within sight of the cliffs.
The town also used a $200,000 state travel and tourism grant, and will potentially contribute another $200,000 in Community Preservation Act funds, pending approval at a special town meeting on Nov. 12. The Friends of Gay Head Light donated $65,000 to the cause.
Mr. Madison said that lately he has been thinking of his friend, Len Butler, who died in 2023. Mr. Butler is remembered as “the man who moved the lighthouse,” for his work on the relocation done in 2015. Before the lighthouse was moved, Mr. Butler conducted a lighthouse assessment which the town used to inform the current renovation.
“I’m sure he’d be very pleased that we were able to come up with funds to make the renovations,” Mr. Madison said. “He gave just a tremendous amount of time to that project and, frankly, without his guidance, I don’t know that the project would have gone as smoothly as it did.”
Mr. Pickman, who worked alongside Mr. Butler when the lighthouse was moved, said his legacy continues to shine.
“He’s a community icon,” Mr. Pickman said. “I just can’t see [the move] having gotten done without Len.”
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