Lantern room lifted off Scituate Lighthouse as $2 million restoration begins
SCITUATE – The lantern room of the Scituate Lighthouse was removed Thursday morning after preservation experts discovered the iron columns connecting the room to the tower are severely corroded.
A small boom lift was attached to the top of the lighthouse Wednesday and, Thursday morning, a 50-ton crane lifted it off the tower.
The lantern room of the 211-year-old lighthouse will be completely rebuilt through a $2 million project paid for by the Scituate Community Preservation Fund. The work includes putting in a new frame, new window frames, new copper cladding and glazing.
"We're using the lantern room as a prototype and will be completely reconstructing it," said Rick Pomroy, of Pomroy Associates, the owner's project manager. "This is one of the nation's oldest and most historic lighthouses. There is a lot of interest in it. It's a beautiful structure."
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Consultants hired by the Scituate Historical Society previously raised concerns about the conditions and safety of the lantern room, and those findings were confirmed after the Spencer Preservation Group evaluated the structure last month.
Spencer, a group of historical preservation specialists, recommended that the lantern room be removed as soon as possible. The group also found that the lantern room's slab floor is "fundamentally separate" from the catwalk slab.
"In this case, the masonry tower that you see standing is in great condition structurally but we'll be checking on the brick, the stones, making sure it's water tight," Shawn Willett, architect with the Spencer Preservation Group, said. "In terms of reconstruction of the lantern room, we'll be fabricating something that matches exactly what we took off (Thursday)."
Pomroy said the town enacted an emergency order last month that was approved by the state to get the project underway without town meeting approval. The next step will be for his company to investigate the structural integrity of the entire stone tower and completing any work that needs to be done.
The Scituate Lighthouse was built in September 1811 and is the 11th-oldest lighthouse in the country. According to the Scituate Historical Society, the last significant work on the lantern room and the lighthouse structure was in the 1930s.
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"We like to use period-correct materials if possible, but we want to get it right and able to be here for many, many years to come," Pomroy said. "We want the structure to be right, the materials to be right and the weatherproofing to be right. That was one of the major issues with the project in the 1930s; the weatherproofing was really lacking and salt water was getting in."
The replacement of the lantern room and the renovation of the lighthouse's tower section is expected to be completed by the late spring/early summer of 2023. Pomroy said fabrication of the lantern will largely dictate the overall project timeline.
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Information from WCVB, The Patriot Ledger's media partner, was used in this report. Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com.
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Lantern room lifted off Scituate Lighthouse in $2 million restoration
