Historic Lighthouse Receives Renovation Grant

The Cove Point Lighthouse tower will undergo a makeover beginning in the fall, and the keeper's house could follow soon afterward.

A recent matching grant for nearly $60,000 from the Maryland Heritage Area Authority has made it possible to move ahead with the stabilization and rehabilitation project, which will cost more than $127,000.

The lighthouse tower was one of 64 projects selected from among 93 applications for a portion of the $2.7 million in heritage grants this year.

The lighthouse, owned by the Calvert Marine Museum, was built in 1828 and is Maryland's oldest continuously operating lighthouse. The light, which is operated by the U.S. Coast Guard, sits on the Chesapeake Bay just south of Calvert Cliffs.

Grants under the Maryland Heritage Area Program are intended to help promote tourism, preservation and economic development -- factors that made the lighthouse and museum system a perfect fit, said Richard Hughes, director of the heritage authority.

"This is one of the big sites, and its linkage with the Calvert Marine Museum -- it just felt like it was a very good investment as far as tourism," Hughes said.

The lighthouse tower's bricks are "self-destructing," because they were covered for years with a form of concrete on the inside and paint on the outside, said Richard Dodds, curator of maritime history for Calvert Marine Museum.

"Basically, the bricks can't breathe," Dodds said.

The paint will be removed and the concrete will be replaced with a lime mortar, which will allow moisture to leak out of the bricks, he said. The stairs and doorway also will be repaired, among other projects in the lighthouse, he said.

"It is going to look like new, probably better than new, actually," Dobbs said.

The museum has applied for a second grant from the authority to support a renovation of the keeper's house. The complete stabilization of the keeper's house, including a new roof, replacement windows and extensive interior work, will cost an estimated $400,000 and will be split into two projects.

"The last piece, which we do not have funding for, was to renovate the interior with the goal of doing a weekly rental," said Sherrod Sturrock, deputy director of the museum. She said the house would be renovated to look historically accurate to 1923, but the interior would comply with today's building codes, complete with heating and cooling systems.

The Cove Point Lighthouse educational exhibits include tours of the grounds and lighthouse, as well as overnight stays, Sturrock said. If the keeper's house is completed, the offerings will include one- and two-week stays during which visitors could participate in lighthouse keeper activities, such as monitoring ships and tracking tides, she said.

A third element of the educational experience would be for an Internet audience. Calvert Marine Museum officials plan to mount a webcam on the lighthouse tower that will be linked to the keeper's log, where people staying in the house "can share their thoughts about what it is like to live next to the lighthouse," Sturrock said.

There are about 28 lighthouses in the country that offer overnight stays but only four that offer the chance to be a lighthouse keeper, Sturrock said. Of those, only one is on the East Coast, in Rhode Island.

"Based on research of similar venues across the country, a weekly rental is the best opportunity. It gives people a longer time to be there and [have] an in-depth experience," Sturrock said. "To really help people get a flavor of what it is like to live on the Chesapeake Bay, you can't really do that in an overnight or on the weekend."

Revenue generated from the rentals would go back into the operation and maintenance of the lighthouse. Museum officials said they hope to hear about a decision on their grant application for the first half of the keeper's house project by the end of the summer. Fundraising will continue for the projects to meet the matching requirements of the grants.