Bodie Island Light Station is getting beautified

BODIE ISLAND

Nearly every corner of the Bodie Island Light Station site will soon be buzzing with restoration projects.

Three historic buildings that were on the oceanfront off the highway were relocated last week to the station's entrance road in preparation for rehabilitation.

And workers this month are expected to begin removing the original First Order Fresnel lens atop the lighthouse before restoration starts on the 1872 tower and its lens.

A new mile-long, 6-foot-wide wooden boardwalk from the lighthouse to the Pamlico Sound, a partnership with the state, is nearly finished. Soon, the roof of the lightkeeper's station and its walkway will be replaced. Next year, the entrance road will be widened and bike paths will be added.

Once the projects - which will cost about $4.5 million - are completed, visitors will be able to climb the Bodie Island Lighthouse for the first time in decades. The beacon might finally outshine the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the public eye, said Doug Stover, historian with the National Park Service Outer Banks Group.

"This is going to be incredible," Stover said. "It's going to be much more popular because they haven't climbed it and it's closer to the urban area."

When two of the relocated buildings, the 1916 boathouse and the 1879 life saving station, are secured on pilings at their new homes off the west side of N.C. 12, the Park Service will prepare them for use in the near future. The third moved building, the 1925 Bodie Island Coast Guard Station, will be re-sided and boarded up until money is acquired to restore it.

Before the buildings were moved, the entire station, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1960s, had been behind dunes just north of Coquina Beach, and was in danger of destruction by erosion.

Stover said the life saving station, used as a ranger station, and the small boathouse, used as a garage, are expected to maintain the same purposes. The Coast Guard station may become a visitor center, lifeguard housing or an education center.

"When we get close to the restoration, we'll have a public scoping meeting to decide what the use of that building will be," Stover said. "But the main point is, we won't have to worry about it being destroyed by the ocean."

By then, improvements elsewhere at Bodie Island will be well under way.

From the ground, the 156-foot lighthouse looks well-tended, with some signs of wear and tear showing inside the oil house at its base.

But inside the tower, windows are rotting and broken. Some steps are rusting and fragile. Off the lantern room, the gallery is held together with cables and chicken wire; large panes of glass are shattered or have cracks in them. One framed window with a large hole is patched with yellow caulking foam, blue Plexiglas and duct tape.

"It seems like the lighthouse deteriorated more the further up you go," Stover said.

In 2004, four chunks of iron - one weighing 450 pounds - fell from the gallery. The public was not allowed into the lighthouse's base until the tower was stabilized with the cables two years later.

An innovative casting method was recently tested on three of the steps on the spiral staircase with much success, Stover said. By melting the original cast iron and blending it with zinc and steel, he said, the resulting product was stronger but still included the "historic fabric" of the stairs.

A total of 21 stair treads will be replaced during the restoration project.

When the lighthouse reopens, the winding spiral staircase will be strong enough to allow 15 people at a time to scale its 205 steps to the deck, where there is a panoramic view of the Atlantic Ocean and the marshlands stretching to the Pamlico Sound and Oregon Inlet.

"Look at the view," Stover said as he gazed out a window two-thirds of the way up the tower.

"It's still like it was when the keepers were here."

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com