A woman searching for a summer home found her interest piqued by a U.S. government auction of lighthouses. After placing a winning bid and buying a lighthouse, she spent over a decade turning the neglected beacon into a beautiful, quirky home.
New York native Sheila Consaul, 65, is currently based in Washington, D.C. She bought the 98-year-old Fairport Harbor West Lighthouse on Lake Erie in Mentor Headlands State Park Headlands State Park, Northeast Ohio, in November 2011 after three years of back-and-forth bidding against other potential buyers—finally winning the bid at $71,010.
“It was originally built in a factory in Buffalo, New York, and it was brought down to Lake Erie on a ship,” Ms. Consaul told The Epoch Times referring to the abandoned lighthouse that was first lit on June 9, 1925, and is still an active aid to navigation.
Keys in Hand
Ms. Consaul, who had previously renovated a historic house, was besotted with the unique property, but despite having taken a trip to see the lighthouse from the outside at the time of the auction, she didn’t see the interior until she had the keys in her hand.
“The good news was that I loved the layout, the main open space, the beautiful cast iron staircase, the way that there was a full basement ... I was very pleasantly surprised by that,” she said. “But, of course, it was in horrible condition.”
Lighthouse keepers lived on site from 1925 until the late 1940s, but when the lighthouse was electrified, and keepers were no longer needed, the site effectively became an abandoned government property.
“A lot of people would break into the building, teenagers would hang out there, so it was missing a lot of things,” Ms. Consaul said. “There was really nothing in the building when I first walked in, even doors were missing.”
The exterior metal sheeting of the lighthouse was rusted; plaster peeled from brick walls inside; and there were no pipes, toilets, or sinks. But the five-story, 3,000-square-foot property had big potential.
Work Begins
Ms. Consaul, a communications consultant, began spending her summers in Northeast Ohio when the weather was pleasant, renovating her quirky new home that stands on the longest beach in Ohio state.She’s turned the basement into space for water storage and a wine cellar, plus a bedroom housing four bunk beds and a fully-fitted bathroom. On the first floor, she has an open-plan kitchen with a utility room and a seating area by the spiral staircase.
Next is the main living level, formerly used for coal storage, and on the fourth floor, an open foyer with a day bed in the original keeper’s living room. On the top floor are the original bathroom, master bedroom, and guest bedroom. The lighthouse can sleep 10.
Sharing more about the process of transforming the place, Ms. Consaul said: “In the early days, we were just shoveling plaster debris, and there was trash in there. ... The upstairs had a major roof leak, and water had basically taken out a section of the hardwood floors upstairs because they were all rotten.”
Her initial goal was to order and fit custom glass since all of the windows in the lighthouse were broken. Luckily, the original structure of the lighthouse was “built like a fortress,” and sturdy enough to remain intact.
There were nine windows upstairs that needed to be fixed, and they all were redone, as Ms. Consaul wanted it to be a light and airy space.
“They were missing everything,” she said. “So they had to be completely replaced, and they had to be custom-made to fit the upstairs space.”
Ms. Consaul then went on to do everything that she would do in a normal restoration such as painting every single piece of the building inside out. She used 90 gallons of paint to transform the inside of the building and 60 gallons of paint outside.
She then sourced furniture and decor, mixing 1920s design with the lighthouse’s original industrial features.
“I actually do have a very committed design approach that I’ve taken,” she said. “[The lighthouse has got] a big beam across the middle of it and a lot of mechanical spaces, so I’ve kind of leaned into both the industrial side of it as well as the fact that it was created in the 1920s.”
White hexagonal tile flooring in the original bathroom emulates the style of early 20th-century design, as does stamp plaster resembling subway tiles and sea foam green wall paint in the guest bedroom.
Team Effort
When it came to utilities for the entirely off-grid site, the location of the lighthouse threw a spanner in the works.
“You can walk to it, but that makes it really hard for people like plumbers and electricians who have to park their trucks a half-mile back in the park,” said Ms. Consaul, who hired a boat with a crane on board to transport gear and larger items such as her refrigerator and granite countertops.
No longer able to draw water from Lake Erie, as lighthouse keepers used to do, Ms. Consaul installed a rainwater collection system and composting toilets. It took nine years to get running water. She began generating her own electricity using a small outdoor generator, but the lighthouse is not heated or air-conditioned. She is working on a sustainable wind-solar system to generate sustainable power in the future.
Little by little, the home began to come together, and “every little success kind of kept you going” said Ms. Consaul, who was not without any support during the renovation.
“I had a lot of friends come and help me in the early days, I just recruited everybody I could find,” she said. “A number of my college friends were in the area. ... I also had a lot of people volunteer that either found me through Facebook, or they‘d sort of wander by ... and say, ’What are you doing in there?‘ and I’d say, ‘Well, if you carry a bag of trash back, because there’s a dumpster in the park, I’ll show you around!'”
Before and After
The lighthouse owner estimates that she spent between $200,000 and $300,000 on the renovation in total, claiming that while it “always takes longer and costs more than you expect,” it was well worth the money, time, and effort.After putting almost a decade of dedicated work into the lighthouse, and having many rewarding and challenging moments, it’s obvious that she does have a favorite spot.
“I actually call it ’sunset point.' I have two Adirondack chairs, a little table, and that’s where I go every night there’s a nice sunset. I go on that western side, and I sit there with my glass of wine,” she said.
Fairport Harbor West Lighthouse, she said has 360 degrees of water views and boats coming in and out.
“It’s basically like being on a little mini island, you know, it’s just you’re out there by yourself, and it’s just stunningly beautiful,” she said.
The iconic lighthouse is like the Lake County emblem. The building is featured in the local phone book, the county website, and in tourist literature. Ms. Consaul knew she was taking on a precious piece of history when she bought the lighthouse and has given back to the community ever since.
Nearly every year since 2012, she has hosted open houses to celebrate the lighthouse’s “birthday,” which happens to fall on June 9. This year, she welcomed 800 visitors. A “before and after” book left open on the dining room table shows visitors how far the lighthouse has come.
“I’m still just a steward,” Ms. Consaul said. “I still just have this lighthouse for a certain amount of time. ... Hopefully it'll last another 100 years or so, so I’m just a little piece of it. But what it means to me, I think, is that I brought it back to life.”
A Beautiful Summer Home
Ms. Consaul doesn’t consider the lighthouse renovations “completed” since she has just had flooring redone and is planning a greywater system to reduce potable water use. However, since the home became liveable in 2020, she has stayed there every summer between May and October, traveling back and forth to Washington for work and to be near her 89-year-old mother.The General Services Administration has been auctioning off lighthouses since Congress passed the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act in 2000, and there are plenty more like Ms. Consaul’s up for grabs. To anyone interested in having a home like hers, Ms. Consaul advises: to be patient and realistic.
“It’s going to take longer and cost more than you ever think,” she said. “You can’t do it yourself, you need a lot of help. You’re going to learn a lot along the way. But, if you persevere, you'll have a beautiful summer home.”
