Montauk Point Lighthouse

The story starts with a real danger. The waters off Montauk Point are shallow and rock-strewn, and every ship headed for New York from Europe or New England had to round this exposed corner. Wrecks were common, so in 1792 Congress authorized a light here, and President George Washington approved the project, making it one of the first public works of the new federal government. Construction began in June 1796 and finished that November.

The builder was John McComb Jr., a noted New York mason whose other surviving work includes Gracie Mansion and lighthouses at Eaton's Neck and Cape Henry, Virginia. He set the tower far enough back from the eroding bluff that engineers of the day believed it would last two hundred years, and by that measure they were exactly right, though holding the sea back from the base has taken real work in modern times.

For its whole long life the lighthouse has done its plain job: warning ships off the point. Its beautiful Fresnel lens, a bloom of hand-ground glass, threw the beam far out to sea from 1903 until 1987, when it was retired to the museum and replaced by a modern light. The station has weathered hurricanes, wars, and the slow gnawing of the bluff beneath it, and it remains an active navigational aid to this day.

The point has other stories layered around the tower. During the world wars the surrounding land held military installations watching the approaches to New York, and generations of keepers and their families lived out here at the lonely end of the island, tending the light through every kind of Atlantic weather. In 2012 the lighthouse was named a National Historic Landmark, one of only about a dozen lighthouses in the country to earn that honor.

Today the Montauk Historical Society runs the site. Inside the old keeper's quarters, a museum tells the tower's story with keepers' logs, shipwreck relics, the retired Fresnel lens, and documents that reach back to Washington and Jefferson. The reward for the fit is the climb up the narrow spiral stair to the tower gallery, where the view takes in the open Atlantic, Block Island Sound, and, on a clear day, the low shapes of Block Island and the Rhode Island shore.

Around the tower spreads Montauk Point State Park, with trails along the bluffs and down to a rocky, un-sandy shore that feels more like New England than the beaches to the west. In winter the offshore rocks become a haul-out for harbor and gray seals, and each fall the point funnels migrating hawks and monarch butterflies. It is a place for weather and wind, so come dressed for it, and give yourself time to walk the bluffs as well as climb the tower. Few spots put you so squarely at the end of the land, with so much history under your feet.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.