Restored Milwaukee lighthouse looks to past
MILWAUKEE -- A lighthouse and keeper's quarters on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan has been rededicated after being restored to its condition of almost a century ago, when it provided an important navigational aid to Great Lakes ships.
Work on the 74-foot tower of the North Point Light Station was finished in early 2006. The restoration of the adjacent two-story house that for years was home to lighthouse keepers and their families now has been completed.
The site is in the middle of one of Milwaukee's most popular recreational venues, Lake Park, which was designed in the 1890s by Frederick Law Olmsted, the founder of landscape architecture and designer of New York City's Central Park.
"The quality of the design of this restoration produced what we could only hope for," said John Scripp, board president of the nonprofit North Point Lighthouse Friends. "It is historic and useful, as well as cleanly beautiful within the urban park setting."
The restoration included rebuilding a passageway connecting the house to the lighthouse entrance, as shown in photos from the early 1920s.
Plans call for using the keeper's quarters as a museum for maritime exhibits, as well as housing offices and meeting rooms, and offering tours of the lighthouse.
The original lighthouse was built in 1855 and was later moved because of erosion of the bluff. It was expanded in 1912 but eventually went out of use and was decommissioned in 1994 and later turned over to Milwaukee County.
The North Point Lighthouse Friends won federal funding and raised money for the $1.6 million restoration project.
Details at www.northpointlighthouse.org.