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Although tens of thousands of tourists visit the Bahama Islands every year, and many of them may see the Paradise Island Lighthouse from the deck of their cruise ship, very few ever visit the lighthouse up close and personal. And even fewer get the opportunity to climb its wooden stairs as did Brian and Amanda Margavich in January of this year.
Brian and his family are no strangers to lighthouses; for a number of years they have been active volunteers at Mississippi’s Biloxi Lighthouse, and prior to that at the Oak Island Lighthouse in North Carolina. So, when they visited the Bahama Islands, planned into their itinerary was a trip to the somewhat remote Paradise Island Lighthouse. Brian stated that he had pieced together enough clues to legally make it out to the lighthouse without trespassing. Their taxi driver, who was able to take them to within two miles of the lighthouse before they hiked the rest of the way in, said the area was still suffering from the ravages of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Arriving at the lighthouse, the Margavichs found that the area was tranquil and peaceful, seemingly untouched by humans. The door to the tower was lying inside, apparently from hurricane damage. Since there were no signs indicating that entrance to the tower was prohibited, the couple climbed the wooden stairs to the top, thereby joining a very small select group of people to have garnered the spectacular view with the city of Nassau in the distance. Interestingly, the frame that apparently once held the glass prisms of the lens is still in place, leaving them to wonder what happened to the lens. As tempting as it was, a walk on the lantern room’s outer walkway was out of the question; some of the wooden planks were missing, making the attempt way too dangerous.
The original name of the 685-acre island and its lighthouse was Hog Island. Before World War II, the island was the private estate of Swedish entrepreneur Axel Wenner-Gren (1881-1961) who in the 1930s was considered one of the wealthiest men in the world, whose fortune building started with Electrolux. In 1959, A&P Supermarket heir Huntington Hartford purchased the island for a resort and changed its name to Paradise Island. In more recent times, the island was owned in the 1980s by media mogul and television personality Merv Griffin (1925-2007). For movie buffs, parts of the James Bond movies Thunderball and Casino Royale were filmed there.
The Paradise Island Lighthouse, also referred to by many as the Nassau Harbor Lighthouse, was built in 1817 and automated in 1958 and is currently powered by a 300MM solar powered lens.
This story appeared in the
May/Jun 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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