I own a lighthouse. Not the little collectible kind that sits on a shelf and collects dust, but a real shining beacon that is a 40-foot-tall, red-and-white, 3,000-square-foot structure made of steel, brick and concrete. It has an enormous beam that radiates 360° and guides mariners and pleasure boaters to safety.
Fairport Harbor West Lighthouse is my summer home. It s also a much-loved building that the federal government let sit idle for more than six decades. Ohio lighthouse Credit: Andrew Cross/A.C. Aerial Photography
Why buy a lighthouse, especially when it hadn t been on my bucket list, I wasn t going through a mid-life crisis, and I wasn t even a lifelong lighthouse lover? Somehow it fell into my lap.