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Despite the protest of many local residents and preservation groups the historic keepers house at Maine's Cape Elizabeth, "Two Lights" has been essentially demolished.
The National Landmark, was made immortal by Edward Hopper in several works of art in the 1920's, are revered by art historians as some of the most important pieces of American painting in the 20th century. An article in Arts and Leisure in the New York Times reported the planned destruction of the Keepers House as "tampering with an icon of American Modern Art." One of Hopper's paintings was even used on the Maine Statehood postage stamp which was issued in July of 1970 in commemoration with the 150th anniversary of Maine entering the Union.
The whole fiasco started back in 1994 when the Keepers House, which had been privately owned for years, was put up for sale. One of the interested buyers at that time was The Lighthouse Preservation Society, a non-profit lighthouse group, which could not raise the necessary funds for the exorbitant asking price of $495,000. The house was eventually purchased by William Kourakos Jr, a wealthy businessman from Greenwich, CT.
In 1998, Kourakos applied for the necessary building and demolition permits to make dramatic changes to the historic property. Since the town of Cape Elizabeth had no law on the books to deal with the preservation of historic property, the Town Council voted to not interfere with Kourakos's plans for a partial demolition, addition and alteration to the Keeper's house. In news reports, Kourakos was quoted as saying that the planned renovations would be in keeping with preserving the Keeper's House. However, our letter to him went unanswered.
When construction began at the site, a local group pleaded with the town to pass a moratorium on the demolition of historic properties located within the town's borders. The town did create a committee to study historic preservation. However, in the meantime, Kourakos apparently decided to demolish the Keeper's House and essentially build anew.
In a published editorial in the Portland Press Herald newspaper, Candice Thornton Lee and Daniel D. Skwire are quoted, "As Trustees at Greater Portland Landmarks, we have in recent months participated in many discussions about the Keeper's House. Although some creative alternatives were proposed, the determination of the owner to proceed, coupled with the inability of the town to offer legal objection, meant that the project could not be halted."
In the 1970's, the Maine Commission for Historic Preservation entered the lighthouse tower into the National Register of Historic Places, but the Keepers House did not receive similar protection. In 1994 the beautiful 2nd order Fresnel lens was removed from the tower by the United States Coast Guard, and was replaced with a modern style beacon. The old Fresnel lens is now on display in the Cape Elizabeth town hall.
The other tower at this location, hence the name "Two Lights," and often referred to as the "west light" was discontinued and abandoned in 1924. During World War II, the government constructed a cylindrical turret on top of the tower to be used for spotting enemy submarines, while protecting the look-outs from small arms fire. Eventually, this part of the station was put up for auction and has been privately owned since the early 1970's.
This story appeared in the
April 1999 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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