Buy a Lighthouse

[Image: Photo courtesy General Services Administration].

A remote, 76-foot lighthouse is for sale in Maine, and it could be yours for only $30,000.

[Image: Photo courtesy General Services Administration].

It's located far to the south of the coast of Bailey Island, on a place called Halfway Rock, due east from Portland in the cold ocean waters of Casco Bay. Indeed, it's so far out in the waves that Google Maps doesn't even show detail for the seas around it.

[Image: Halfway Rock seen on Google Maps].

The photos seen here were taken by Kraig Anderson and Jeremy D'Entremont, and were made available to the bidding public courtesy of the U.S. General Services Administration—who strongly advise that you physically travel to and inspect the lighthouse to make sure you know what you're getting into.

The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it "will continue to serve as an active aid to navigation, maintained by the United States Coast Guard," the GSA explains. "Maintained" is a subjective concept, on the other hand.

[Images: Photos courtesy General Services Administration].

After all, it clearly needs fixing up—to the extent that that's possible, given the structure's status on the National Register—so tread carefully if you are not in the market for a strenuous project.

Waterproofing Nationally Registered wood panels and repainting iron doors as minor storms of sea spray crash on the rocks nearby might not be your idea of a perfect Sunday.

[Images: Photos courtesy General Services Administration].

But I say buy it, visit it now and again when you're bored, and then invite a changing parade of architecture bloggers to come out for one week at a time in the summer, writing spatial fictions as the fog rolls in. It will be our generation's Villa Diodati.

Don't like the looks of this? Consider bidding on the singular, island-less Minots Ledge Light for only ten grand—

[Image: Photo courtesy General Services Administration].

—which, at the time of its (second) construction (because the first Minots Ledge Light was washed away in a violent storm), was actually "the most expensive light house that was ever constructed in the United States," according to Wikipedia.

Here's a photograph of it taken from a passing tour boat.

[Image: Minots Light, courtesy of Wikipedia].

Or put in a bid on the Boon Island lighthouse for $12,000, instead.

[Images: Photos courtesy General Services Administration].

Then invite me around for a candlelit tour.

(Thanks to Chelsea H. B. DeLorme for the tip! Post updated after a note from Daniel H. Cantwell. Earlier real estate listings on BLDGBLOG: Buy an Underground Kingdom, Buy a Prison, Buy a Tube Station, Buy an Archipelago, Buy a Map, Buy a Torpedo-Testing Facility, Buy a Silk Mill, Buy a Fort, Buy a Church).