"The Light's On, but Nobody's Home"

By Jerry Zezima

I am a lightheaded homeowner who knows that a house is not a home unless there is something to do. And there always is.

That’s why I want to buy — with the approval of the bank, the federal government and, most important, my wife — a lighthouse.

I admit that I am not the likeliest owner of one of these sea sentinels for two reasons: (a) they require a lot of work and I am the least handy man in America and (b) they require a lot of money and my mortgage would end up, fittingly, underwater.

But that did not stop me from entering an auction for the Penfield Reef Lighthouse, an 1874 Second Empire-style historic structure situated off of Fairfield, Connecticut, in Long Island Sound.

The property, which features a 51-foot octagonal light tower atop a two-story keeper’s quarters, is accessible only by boat.

It’s another reason why I wouldn’t be a good lighthouse owner: I have a boat, but it’s small, plastic and is kept in my bathtub.

Still, I could not resist the lure of a nautical adventure that would make Johnny Depp jealous.

But first I had to run the idea past my wife, Sue, who is the captain of the family.

“I want to buy a lighthouse,” I told her.

“Why?” she asked.

“So I can be the star of the next ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie,” I replied.

“Right now you could be the star of the next ‘Money Pit’ movie,” Sue said.

“There’s an auction for a lighthouse and I want to put in a bid,” I explained. “What’s our limit?”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” she replied. “Go have fun. But just don’t win it.”

I went online and saw that the bidding started at $100,000.

“I’m going to come up short,” I told Paul Hughes, a public affairs officer for the General Services Administration, which was conducting the auction.

“Looks like,” replied Hughes. “But if you’re the least handy man in America, you definitely don’t want to win. The GSA has lighthouses throughout the country, including the Great Lakes, and they all need a significant amount of work. They’re not pristine, move-in ready. Not even TLC will help.”

“Does TLC stand for total lighthouse care?” I asked.

“You could say that,” said Hughes, adding that he’s a homeowner who is “OK, not great, at being handy. I couldn’t own a lighthouse, either.”

“Do you get calls from real estate people who want to buy your house?” I asked.

“All the time,” Hughes answered.

“My wife and I do, too,” I said. “The first time someone asked if we wanted to sell our house, I told him that he would have to drag my cold, dead body out of here. Then I said that if we did sell, we’d have nowhere to go, so I asked if we could live with him.”

“What did he say?” Hughes wanted to know.

“Nothing,” I replied. “He hung up.”

“If you bought a lighthouse,” Hughes pointed out, “you’d have someplace to go.”

“And my wife would tell me where to go,” I predicted.

“I guess she wouldn’t approve,” he said.

“She says I don’t do enough around our own house,” I replied.

Hughes said it’s “a labor of love” to preserve history and that the GSA tries to give historic lighthouses to conservation groups, towns or museums. But if there is no interest, the lighthouses are put up for auction.

Not surprisingly, my measly bid of 25 grand didn’t come close to buying the Penfield Light, which went to the undisclosed winner for $370,000.

“It’s all for the best,” I told Sue, who was very relieved. “How could I take care of a lighthouse when I can’t even change a lightbulb?”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima