Sandy Hook Lighthouse Closes For Restoration Work

SANDY HOOK, NJ — The historic Sandy Hook Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in the nation, is closing to tours for repairs and restoration work, the National Park Service announced.

The park service announced the closure on the Sandy Hook Gateway National Park website late last week. The closure began Monday and is expected to last until May 2018, according to the park service.

The closure is limited to the lighthouse tower, the park service said.

The lighthouse Keeper's Quarters, which house the information center, exhibits, and Eastern National Gift Shop, will remain open. National Park Service senior and access passes and night fishing parking permits will remain obtainable, the park service said.

The keeper's quarters, which were built in 1883, were rehabilitated and restored following damage caused by Superstorm Sandy and reflect the building’s appearance in the mid-to-late 1930s, according to the Sandy Hook Foundation website.

The Sandy Hook Lighthouse was first lit on June 11, 1764, according to the New Jersey Lighthouse Society. Two hundred years later, in 1964, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.

According to the society, the lighthouse was built of "rubble, about 500 feet from the tip of the hook." Now, it's about 1-1/2 miles from the point due to expansion of the land over time. At one point there were three towers with lights but only the main tower remains.

Restoration work was done on the lighthouse in 2000, according to an NJ.com report. That work included repainting the brick interior and the stucco exterior left the stucco shell a bright white that still gleams in the sun.

The lighthouse, built to help merchant ships arriving to port in New York in the 1760s, is still in active operation. It is equipped with "a third-doder Fresnel lens illuminated by a 1,000-watt bulb, and emitting 45,000 candle-power. It is visible 19 miles at sea," the society said. The only time the light was not on was during World War II, to prevent enemy ships from finding the entrance to New York Harbor, according to the NJ.com report.

Read more about the history of Sandy Hook Lighthouse here.

Sandy Hook lighthouse, via the U.S. National Park Service, photo by Jerry Kasten, Volunteer-In-Parks