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Available Framed or Unframed - Click for Details
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Location: Isle au Haut
Nearest Town: Isle au Haut, Maine
Latitude: 44.065 Longitude: -68.6517
Body of Water: Penobscot Bay
Open to Public: Site: Yes
Tower: No
Station Established: 1907
Present Tower Activated: 1907
Status of Light: Operational
Tower Height: 40 ft.
Optic: 250 mm, Solar Powered
Fourth Order Fresnel, 1907
National Register Reference #: 87002265
Listing Name: Isle au Haut Light Station
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Built in 1907, the Isle au Haut lighthouse was the final cylindrical brick light tower to be constructed in Maine. This site shares a number of similarities with the Marshall Point lighthouse off Port Clyde in western Penobscot Bay. Both sites sport a tower constructed with two distinct sections as bases of granite block support upper tiers of white, painted brick. Each station has a a gambrel-roofed keeper's residence and a raised walkway connecting the tower to the island. The tower, situated on the west side of the island, is 40 feet tall and faces Isle au Haut Bay from Robinson Point. The station also hosts an oil house (1907, now used as a guest house), a wood shed (1907), a stuccoed frame boathouse, a wood shed (1979) and a generator house (1986).
The 2.5 story, stucco and frame Victorian keeper's house sits atop a rocky ledge overlooking the Atlantic and is today a bed and breakfast. The island's numerous hills support dense forests that reach high into the horizon. They are often the first hints of land for mariners sailing back into harbor. In a book detailing his explorations, French explorer Samuel de Champlain coined the term "Isle Haute" which translates as "high island". Isle au Haut is sparsely populated with only a few dozen hard-core Mainers residing year round. Winters are generally quiet and uneventful but the island comes alive during the summer as campers and hikers arrive to enjoy the natural beauty of Acadia National Park. Isle au Haut was also the last place in the U.S. to give up the old crank-style telephones.
The Isle au Haut lighthouse was automated by the Bureau of Lighthouses in 1934. At that time, all of the buildings were sold, sans the tower. The light station is still operational today and sports a modern, solar-powered 250 mm optic. The original fourth-order Fresnel lens is now part of the Maine Lighthouse Museum in Rockland. Ownership of the tower was transferred to the town of Isle au Haut in 1998. The tower was renovated at the direction of the Isle au Haut Lighthouse Committee in 1999.
Isle au Haut island is 5.5 miles south of Stonington and part of Acadia National Park. Camping is allowed but applications for reservations must be received well in advance.
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