M A G A Z I N E MENDOCINO COAST PROPERTY Volume 28 • Number 7 • Issue 669 • Mendocino County’s Own Real Estate Publication • January, 2015 • Published monthly Page 2 Real Estate Magazine December 19, 2014 n a wind-swept bluff two miles north of the village of Mendocino on the rugged coast of Northern California, sits the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse, a friendly sentinel for coastal mariners for over one hundred years. Its signature ten-second flash and once booming fog signal has provided a much needed navigational reference from the early days of the intrepid lumber schooners carrying redwood lumber for California’s expanding population in the early twentieth century, to today’s commercial and sport fishermen, to the huge container ships heading north to Portland and Puget Sound on the distant horizon. The Point Cabrillo Light Station has celebrated many milestones over the last twenty years: relighting of the beautifully restored Fresnel lens in August 1999; major awards from the governor for the restoration of the lightkeepers' houses in 2007; the centenary of the lighthouse in June 2009, and not least the new red roof on the Second Assistant Lightkeeper’s House last summer! This fall more exciting news was received at Point Cabrillo. Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association President Tanya Smart told volunteers, staff, and community supporters that the United States Coast Guard had decided after all to maintain the historic Fresnel lens at Point Cabrillo as the official federal Aid to Navigation [ATON for short] on our coast. The hundred-and-five-year-old lens will continue to burn brightly in the light tower guiding our local mariners, as it has done over all these years, even in this day of hi-tech aids such as radar and global positioning systems. Lighthouse – Continued on Page 4 REAL ESTATE MAGAZINE is a FREE Publication. ON OUR COVER: Sunset behind the lantern room and Fresnel lens at Point Cabrillo Light The price of a subscription covers the cost of FIRST CLASS MAIL plus a small handling fee. Station. Photo by Dan Feaster. ABOVE: Sunset gilds Point Cabrillo Lighthouse. Photo by John Loomis. 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Willits and Ukiah Patti Fereira Real Estate Magazine December 19, 2014 Page 3 For information about advertising in Real Handy Ads Call 357-4371 and ask for Lisa Or write to: Real Estate Magazine, 160 South Harold Street, Fort Bragg, CA 95437 CUSTOM Fort Bragg FABRICATION – Paul SHEET METAL Plumbing HEATING Douglas STOVE SHOP – GAS, Schlosser, Newberger Well Test Reports WOOD & OIL STOVES Septic Tank InspectionsArchitect Architects Complete Water System Service Water Filtration Water Heaters Architecture, Landscape Design PO Box 1393 Mendocino & Energy Analysis Complete CAPlumbing 95460 Emergency Service 707 937-3729 435 N. Main Street State Cont. Lic. No. 407516 [email protected] 964-0691 Fort Bragg, CA 95437 P.O. Box 1878, Fort Bragg, CA 95437 636 North Franklin Street, Fort Bragg, CA (707) 961-0911 www.pauldouglasarchitect.com STATE LIC. #634827 www.lsndesign.com (707) 964-0604 FAX 964-0410 Attwood Dina’s Paint Open 7 Days a Week! Construction & Paper MENDOCINO Inc. 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THAT FLASHING FRESNEL LENS When the light station was acquired by the state of California in 1992, the Fresnel lens and its ancillary equipment remained federal property and did not transfer to the state along with the buildings and land. At that time the lens was decommissioned and sitting under a canvas cover. Agreement was subsequently obtained from the Coast Guard to restore and activate the lens as the official federal aid to navigation. The restoration work was carried out over the winter of 1998/1999 largely by our volunteers under the supervision and with the assistance of Coast Guard ATON staff. The lens was reactivated in May 1999 and has been in continuous operation since that time, maintained by members of U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Flotilla 87. In 2013 word had come from the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Center that as part of a general review of the continuance of certain aids to navigation, the light at Point Cabrillo was being considered for decommissioning. Decommissioning the light would have resulted in the Fresnel lens being re-designated as an artifact and coming under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Coast Guard Historian's Office. The light would have been ABOVE: U.S. Coast Guard Color Guard at the Point Cabrillo Light Station centennial celebration June darkened and under possible threat of being disassembled and removed from the 10, 2009. Photo by Nancy Barth. lantern room to be relocated for display elsewhere. The Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association quickly marshaled support at the local, SINCE 1909, A BEACON FROM THE SHORE state, and federal level with a view to negotiating with the Coast Guard and California State Parks to have the lens designated as a private aid to navigation. This approach The light station at Point Cabrillo was constructed in 1908/1909 following years of would ensure that the lens would continue to flash its signature light to local boaters canvassing by local shipowners, the lumber industry, and local politicians. The light and remain as a focal visitor attraction at the lighthouse for future generations. These was lit by the first head lightkeeper, Wilhelm Baumgartner, at midnight on June 9, negotiations were under way when word that the lens was to continue as the aid to 1909 witnessed by a gathering of local dignitaries and neighbors. The new light at last navigation was announced. At a meeting of the Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association filled in a long dark segment of the rugged Mendocino coast between Point Arena to the board addressed the community: “To everyone who helped make this happen, the south and Cape Mendocino eighty miles to the north and was greatly welcomed by be proud of what you helped accomplish. The Point Cabrillo lighthouse has been in lumber schooner captains, their crews, and the local community who often traveled by operation as a federal aid to navigation since 1909 and because of you, it will continue sea in those days. to light the way home.” The new light station comprised the octagonal light tower supporting the lantern room and its fine new third-order Fresnel lens shipped out from Chance Brothers and BELOW: Point Cabrillo Lighthouse with the schooner Lynx and U.S. Coast Guard Motor Lifeboat in the Company, near Birmingham, England. The lantern room attached to the fog signal background. Photo by Harold Hauck. building on the headland contained the fog signal engines, compressors, and air horns. The distinctive cream siding and red roof provided a prominent day mark for the passing shipping on the coast by day, while the powerful Fresnel lens flashed its distinctive ten- second characteristic at night.