Restoration work is underway at the Piedras Blancas Light Station to bring the historic landmark back to life.
“I think it’s great. The more historical sites that they refurbish and bring back the better,” said Anna Marie Avalos, a Cambria resident who was touring the lighthouse on Thursday.
The Piedras Blancas Light Station Association is partnering with the Bureau of Land Management to restore the nearly 150-year-old lighthouse and stabilize the tower so it is safe for earthquakes.
“If you notice, the tower is missing the top. To be able to eventually put the top back on the lighthouse, it has to have that steel reinforcement,” said Ryan Cooper, Light Station Manager.
So far, outside work has been done trying to figure out what’s under the tower, what the rock formation looks like, and excavation work.
“Our next job is to do brick-and-mortar testing to see how well they are holding up for the weather. One of the windows is going to come out to see how much damage there is around it and gives us an idea of how much more we’re going to have to spend on it,” said Gary O’Neill, volunteer.
Engineering is almost done. The next step will be finding money to complete the project. The estimated cost to completely restore the tower is around $10 million to $20 million.
“While we do have other lighthouses along our coastline, this one is unique to Piedras Blancas and we’d like to keep it that way and we want to restore it back to the way that it was,” Cooper said.
The light station sees around 10,000 to 15,000 visitors every year.
“I really like talking to people. That one-on-one after I’m done with the presentation, so to speak, and I walk around for a while to see if they have any questions,” O’Neill said.
“There’s a lot of pictures and artifacts and things like that. We had a great docent that really gave us the history of everything, and we really felt like we got the good picture of the history of the lighthouse,” Avalos said.
Cooper says he hopes those who visit the light station leave with a sense of what mariners experienced nearly 150 years ago.
“And then also the care that the Bureau of Land Management and our volunteers and the Piedras Blancas Light Station Association, the pride that they take in this location and keeping it up and letting it be available to the public for generations to come,” Cooper said.
There is no timeline for when the restoration is expected to be complete unless funding is secured. For more information on where you can donate, click here.
