Beacon of light

The historic lighthouse in Maryland gets a new lease of life after renovation works.

THE Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse in Maryland, the United States, is as charming as it is incongruous.

The six- sided Victorian cottage is painted white, with a pitched red roof, dormer windows and brightgreen shutters. There it sits on giant stilts, 3m above water level, as if it had been plucked from its location on land by a giant hand and deposited in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.

As an 11- year, approximately US$ 500,000 ( RM2.2mil) restoration project draws to a close, the 1875 lighthouse is more visually appealing than it’s been at any time in recent memory.

“It’s elegant, a classic,” marvelled Al Ponzio, 65, of Annapolis, Maryland, who took part in a public tour of the lighthouse. “It never goes out of style.”

Just as remarkably, the lighthouse is still in operation, guiding ships to safety in 2015 using roughly the same technology that it has used for the past 140 years: A beacon flashing in a tower that’s high enough to be seen 17.7km away. For the past three decades, the lighthouse has been fully automated. The last human keepers left in 1986.

“The most fascinating thing to me is that this lighthouse still is standing,” tour guide Mike Thorpe said. “The walls are the original tongue- and- groove construction – no nails. All the ironwork is original from 1875. After all this time, the structural integrity of the lighthouse still is good.”

The Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse has withstood nearly a century and a half of storms, ice and everything that the Chesapeake Bay can throw at it. In 2003, during Tropical Storm Isabel, the bay waters rose so high that the lighthouse docks and deck were completely submerged.

But even during the worst of the storm, the lighthouse didn’t budge. It remained anchored in place, held fast by iron pilings that – way back in 1875 – were drilled about 3.6m