Avery Point Lighthouse

by Joan Carroll

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Dimensions

12.000 x 18.000 inches

Title

Avery Point Lighthouse

Artist

Joan Carroll

Medium

Photograph - Digital Photograph

Description

What a treat to find this cute lighthouse! Frankly, I was not all that excited about visiting a lighthouse that was on a college campus, I didn't think it would be all that interesting. But I felt compelled to go since I had the time and because it is accessible by car. The lighting on the morning of my visit was beautiful and it was a delightful fresh breeze. The tower stands on the shore at the east side of the entrance to the Thames River, on the University of Connecticut's Avery Point Campus in Groton. Avery Point is named for Capt. James Avery, a prominent early settler of New London. Its stint as an active navigational aid (from 1944 to 1967) was relatively brief, and it never had a resident keeper. The campus was once the 70-plus-acre estate of wealthy industrialist, philanthropist, and yachtsman Morton F. Plant. Plant, who inherited the Southern Express Company from his father, built a luxurious 31-room summer 'cottage' called Branford House at Avery Point in 1903. The Plants reportedly stayed at Branford House for only a month or two each year, but a staff of 50 was employed to keep things in good order year-round. Morton Plant died in 1918, and in 1942 the estate was sold to the state of Connecticut. Shortly thereafter it was deeded to the U.S. Coast Guard, which planned to develop it into a training facility. The Coast Guard had a small training facility on the New London side of the Thames but needed a larger site. The deed from the state stipulated that the Coast Guard would 'erect and maintain on or over the land hereinafter described beacon lights or other buildings and apparatus to be used in aid of navigation.' The United States Coast Guard Training Station was soon established at Avery Point, with Branford House serving as an administration building and living quarters for the station's commanding officer. The lighthouse, the last to be built in Connecticut, was finished by March 1943. The octagonal 41-foot tower, designed by Alfred Hopkins and Associates of New York, New York, harks back to the nation's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century masonry towers and has some Colonial Revival details. The lighthouse was constructed of light brown concrete blocks with an eight-sided wooden lantern. The lantern gallery deck was surrounded by a cast-concrete railing with 32 white Italian marble balusters salvaged from the Plant estate. The lighthouse's debut as a lighted aid to navigation was delayed by war concerns. On May 2, 1944, it was lighted for the first time with an unusual array of eight 200-watt bulbs, creating a fixed white light 55 feet above sea level. The Coast Guard relocated its training facility from Avery Point to Governor's Island, New York, in 1967. The lighthouse's days as an aid to navigation ended on June 25, 1967. The Avery Point property reverted to the state of Connecticut, and in 1969 it was converted to the Southeastern Campus of the University of Connecticut, later renamed the University of Connecticut at Avery Point.

FEATURED PHOTO, Lighthouses In Drawings Paintings Photography group, 6/8/16

FEATURED PHOTO, All Places on the Atlantic Coast of the USA group, 2/19/15

FEATURED PHOTO, Beauty Captured group, 11/23/13

FEATURED PHOTO, FAA Featured Images group, 11/22/13

FEATURED PHOTO, Photography and Textures make Fine Art group, 11/19/13

Uploaded

November 19th, 2013

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