Restoration In Progress

Lantern Room - Carpenter/Blacksmith Shop - The Barn - The Water Tower

The Lantern Room

A total restoration of the lantern room atop the Pt. Sur Lighthouse was completed on January 13, 2001. The restoration was carried out by the International Chimney Corporation, the company that moved and restored the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in North Carolina.

Pt. Sur's lantern room was suffering from rust and corrosion. Incompatible metals were eating themselves up and water poured into the tower when it rained. A bullet hole graced the cupola. During the six month restoration, International Chimney removed lead paint, recast parts, patched other pieces with a titanium bonding agent, cleaned and coated brass; and then put everything back together, repainting the entire metal structure with a special paint that cures by drawing moisture out of the metal itself. The tower has been painted black, the correct color for the 1929, the period to which Pt. Sur is being restored.

With a $25,000 grant to get started from the National Maritime Heritage Grant Program, the Central Coast Lighthouse Keepers contracted with International Chimney for a total cost of $309,000 to restore the metal and glass lantern room. The U.S. Coast Guard, who owns the lighthouse, reviewed and approved the plans and the California Department of Parks and Recreation contributed maintenance funds as allowed by their contract with the Coast Guard. The Community Foundation of Monterey County donated an additional $13,740. The vast majority of the project was funded by CCLK through tour fees, gift shop sales, memberships, donations, matching grants and the "Buy a Prism" project.
The newly restored tower is painted black,
the historic color of Pt. Sur's Lantern Room.
Other Images: (click to see larger image)
Before restoration, rust outside the Lantern Room was a serious problem. The tower was shrouded to contain lead paint removed and to shelter workers from the often gale force winds. Inside the Lantern Room, corrosion was destroying important support elements.


Carpenter/Blacksmith Shop

     The first restoration project at Pt.Sur was completed in 1999 after more than 2 years of work.The Carpenter/Blacksmith Shop was closed and sealed in 1974 when the Coast Guard automated Pt. Sur Lightstation and the keepers left. It was not re-opened until the early 1990s. The first priority for restoration was treating the building for termites, then cutting away the dry-rot in the floor and lower walls. Rotting supports were replaced. New windows, where needed, were custom manufactured to match the non-standard originals. New floorboards were put down where the old ones where unsalvageable. The roof was re-shingled. Gutters ensured proper drainage. The paint colors were determined by analysis of existing layers of paint, and the paint scheme copied from old photos. Tools from the 1920s for carpenters and blacksmiths are currently being added as we acquire them. Soon, the old carpenter/blacksmith shop will be ship-shape as it was in 1929.
1995

1999





The Barn

Pt. Sur's Barn has had many uses since its construction a century ago as a place to keep livestock. (Its actual building date is unknown.) Until its restoration, which was completed in 2000, it served as a garage, a store-house and a recreation center, among other uses, until it was abandoned in 1974 when the Coast Guard closed up all the buildings and left Pt. Sur unoccupied. A deck for livestock collapsed sometime in the 1930s. By the early 1990s, the barn was leaning perilously toward the west and was twisting. Volunteers started to measure the "lean." In 1997, the barn was eased upright and a new retaining wall was erected on the east side to keep the rock itself from pushing the building over. CCLK contributed $30,000 toward construction of the new wall. State Park Restorer, Gary Nelson, was instrumental in hand digging the wall's foundation when no contractor could be found to do that work. With the wall in place and the building upright, work started on removing the lead paint. In early 1998, a ferocious El Nino storm hit Pt. Sur with 100+ mph winds and blew the barn into the new retaining wall three feet away. All the scaffolding erected for the lead paint removal was swept over the rock 300 feet to the beach below. But the building was still standing. Pt. Sur still had all of its original buildings. The road to Monterey was out, and would remain out for several months. Gary Nelson, a Big Sur resident, "tied" down the barn with large cables until funds and manpower could be assembled later to ease the barn upright again, now in the opposite direction, and restoration could begin. The volunteers contributed their own money and labor to put the deck back on the west face of the barn. In August 2000 the barn restoration was completed.
Restored Barn in 2000
Images: (click to see larger image)
Barn in 1907 Barn after El Niño storm of 1998





The Water Tower

In 1998, El Niño storms made much of Highway One impassable for months. Phone service to residents of Big Sur was sometimes unreliable. CCLK chairman John O'Neil suggested to State Parks and the Cellular One (now AT&T) phone company that an emergency cell site at Pt. Sur might be of benefit to residents and the hundreds of highway workers laboring without phone communications all along the coast. It was such a success, that the phone company funded the replica water tower which now houses the new cell site. That too was completed in early 2001.

The original tower was built in 1907 to store water high enough to provide water pressure for the new flush toilets installed in the 3rd floor of the Assistant Keepers' Quarters. The redwood supports for the original tower were milled in Big Sur of local lumber. Lumber large enough for supports for the replica tower could be found at only one lumber mill in California in 2000. That mill is in Northern California.
New Water Tower in 2001
Images: (click to see larger image)
Keeper Bill Fraser under tower c.1930 Construction - 2001 Construction - 2001