Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Lighthouse has been sold at auctionAnd the new owners are two Clevelanders who intend to preserve a historic part of Cleveland’s skyline.
When the auction closed on September 6, the lighthouse fetched $425,000 and the winning bidders were personalized luxury jewelry designer Heather Moore and Classic Auto Group owner Jim Brown.
“If you grew up in Cleveland, it serves as a kind of ‘light of the land’ even during wars, depressions, recessions and boom times,” Moore said on the lighthouse’s revamped website. “When Jim Brown, owner of Classic Auto Group, and I heard it was being auctioned, it was important to both of us that someone from Cleveland buy it. So, we did!”
The website states that the new owners are brainstorming how to best clean and utilize the lighthouse while ensuring respect and preservation of the historic property.
“It’s a part of our history,” Brown said, “as much as the lake or every part of the city. People have worked there for decades, married there, featured it as a tourist destination. We love doing things there. That’s fine. We don’t close until January, so that will help.”
The auction listing states that the lighthouse was built in 1910 at the entrance to Cleveland’s harbor and is accessible only by boat. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983.
According to the National Register description, the West Pierhead Lighthouse consists of a four-story brick tower with an entrance, a basement, a galley on the first floor, and living quarters on the second, third, and fourth floors. Above is a clock chamber with a circular gallery and a lantern above. The clock’s light was converted to electric in 1960 but still shines through a Fresnel lens made in Paris in 1884.
A covered walkway connects the tower to a 1.5-story steel-framed fog signal house built in 1916.
Moore creates luxury personalized jewelry that is sold nationwide, and Brown’s ownership group operates more than a dozen car dealerships around Northeast Ohio, selling a variety of new and used vehicles.
This story was originally published by Ian Cross Scripps News Cleveland,