Time and weather take a toll on iconic New London lighthouse

New London ― The historic Ledge Lighthouse, whose blazing lights and bellowing foghorn have kept mariners approaching the mouth of New London harbor safe for more than a century, is in need of help.

Blue scaffolding rose along the western side of the 115-year-old red-brick lighthouse on Wednesday to give architectural and engineering experts access to a long crack running the length of an exterior wall. The crack was located just below the third-floor windows, where sections of flaking steel peeked out from excavated masonry.

That 35-foot fracture, a casualty of salt air, Thames River sea spray and age, needs to be addressed to prevent more water from infiltrating the building’s interior, said Bruce Buckley, president of the Ledge Lighthouse Foundation, the non-profit group whose volunteers help maintain the lighthouse for its owners, The New London Maritime Society.

“We noticed the crack about two years ago and finally have the money to take a hard look at the situation and fix it,” Buckley said. “That steel was cutting edge at the time of construction, but metal rusts.”

The lighthouse, built in 1909 at the entrance to New London harbor, has eight bands of steel ringing each of its four sides. Those bands, part of the building’s internal metal support structure, were covered by a brick “skin,” that has since bowed out in places, said Beth Acly, a structural engineer with Cirrus Structural Engineering, the company hired to examine and fix the damage.

“It was a transitional structure; one built in the early days of concrete with a steel frame, concrete slabs inside and load-bearing brick on the outside,” Acly said. “But that steel is finally corroding. And when steel expands, it does so vastly and pushes that outer brick outwards.”

The lighthouse was built in the French Second Empire style thanks to the lobbying of nearby wealthy landowners who eschewed the proposed “spark-plug” lighthouse design originally pitched for the site.

The lighthouse, with its lantern room rising from a mansard roof, has been automated since 1987 and is a popular tourist attraction accessible by chartered water taxis.

Before taking a small boat from Groton’s Pine Island Marina to the lighthouse on Wednesday morning, Acly hoped the repairs would simply entail cleaning off the corroded steel, applying a rust-inhibitor and sealing the cracks.

But after getting a closer look at the damage, Acly said she’ll likely recommend a more invasive solution that involves removing the entire section of 8-inch-high damaged steel band in the coming weeks and replacing it with a more robust version.

The cost of the repair job is expected to be covered with a $100,000 donation from the Connecticut Port Authority and a matching state grant.

The donation was part of a 2021 agreement the authority entered into that allowed the agency to cover the former Central Vermont Railroad Pier in New London.The 150-year-old, granite-lined pier redeveloped was as part of upgrade work to transform State Pier into an offshore wind staging area.

Acly said that if one steel band is degraded, the other seven probably aren’t in great shape either, noting corrosion only gets worse as time passes. In addition to the steel work, the lighthouse’s soffits and gutters also need attention.

Buckley said while there’s no funding for future repairs, he’s banking on new revenue materializing from tourism generated by the future National Coast Guard Museum.

Construction of the $40 million, 89,000-square-foot, six-story museum behind Union Station is expected to be complete late next year. Project and city representatives anticipate the museum will attract up to 300,000 visitors annually to the region.

“If we can get even 1% of that number of tourists to come out to the lighthouse, that’s 3,000 people,” Buckley said showing off the lighthouse rooms filled with historical photos and memorabilia.

Buckley, a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, said he’s never seen a visitor leave the lighthouse unimpressed by the structure.

“It’s that ‘wow’ factor,” he said,” But at this point, unless we do some major renovations, Mother Nature will win out.”

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