Fairfield County Lighthouses Could Be Sold For Preservation

 STAMFORD (AP) — The US Coast Guard has listed five Fairfield County lighthouses as excess property, meaning they could be sold to nonprofit groups or towns to be preserved.

The lighthouses could be sold under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000.

The Advocate of Stamford reported that the lighthouses are: Peck Ledge Lighthouse and Greens Ledge Lighthouse near the Norwalk Islands, Penfield Reef Lighthouse off Fairfield, Stratford Shoal Lighthouse between Connecticut and Long Island and Tongue Point off Bridgeport.

The Coast Guard will keep the Stratford Point Lighthouse, where its port captain lives.

Since the act was enacted, about six lighthouses have been given away to nonprofit organizations and the titles to another 12 to 15 could be transferred in the next year, said John Kelly, chief of the New England branch of the Government Services Administration.

One of those is the New London Harbor Lighthouse at the west entrance to New London Harbor, Kelly said.

“Letting the lighthouses lie dormant is not a good idea,” said Carmelia Kanzler, a former president of the New London Ledge Lighthouse Foundation. “They just deteriorate. A lot of those will go to waste.”

In 1987, Kanzler, who was mayor of New London, helped persuade the Coast Guard to sign a 30-year historical property lease, allowing her foundation to take care of the New London Ledge light that has marked the entrance to New London Harbor since 1909.

“They welcomed us with open arms. They felt we would take it and fix it up and have a nonprofit organization do the things they would love to have done,” she said.

The foundation has nearly finished refurbishing the 14-room brick lighthouse.

The lighthouses cannot be sold for a commercial purpose and must be made available to the public.