Baker Island Light Station, Bar Harbor Maine

Date added: January 28, 2024

Categories:
Maine
Lighthouse

Do you have an update on the current status of this structure? Please tell us about it in the comments below.

The light station at Baker Island was established in 1828 as a guide to the south entrance to Frenchman's Bay and Mount Desert Island. Its strategic location as a navigational aid is emphasized by the number of coastal communities in the vicinity as well as its role in guiding vessels along the coast between the lights at Saddleback Ledge to the southwest and Petit Manan to the northeast. It was the first light station established in the vicinity of Mount Desert Island. During the late nineteenth century, the Baker Island Light guided the numerous vessels that came to Mount Desert bearing tourists for the resorts at Bar Harbor, Northeast Harbor, and others.

The tower continues to serve as an aid to navigation under the supervision of the Coast Guard. The keeper's dwelling and ancillary buildings have been transferred to Acadia National Park as has the entire island.

Site Description

The Baker Island Light Station is located on a small island which is now part of Acadia National Park. The complex, situated nearly seventy feet above sea level, consists of a cylindrical brick tower, a detached one-and-a-half-story frame keeper's house, an oil house, and a fuel house.

Attaining a height of thirty-seven feet from its base to the lens' focal plane, the tower, built in 1855, is entered from a door facing the house. Originally covered by a passageway, the door is flanked by the surviving square brick walls which are joined to the round tower. Two window openings, now covered, are located in the tower's south and north faces respectively. They illuminate the interior spiral stair. An iron walkway with a railing projects slightly over the walls. An octagonal iron lantern with clear glass panes in its upper section surmounts the tower. It is capped by a domed polygonal roof featuring a spherical ventilator. The 1903 Annual Report of the Light-House Board refers to a reinforcement of the tower, but the exact nature of this undertaking is not clear.

Constructed in 1855, the keeper's house is an L-shaped building sheathed in clapboards that rests on a brick foundation. Its three-bay facade has a door at the northeast corner and two window openings (now boarded over). Shallow pediments frame these openings. A gable-roofed dormer surmounts the central window and a brick chimney punctuates the roof ridge. There are four symmetrically placed windows on the west gable end and three on the east end. Originally, a door was located on this tower end. There are two windows on the rear elevation of the main block as well as a second dormer. The short ell has a window and narrow shed-roofed vestibule on the east side, a single window at the rear, and a door and one window on the wall. A brick flue rises through the ell.

A historic photograph of the Baker Island Light Station shows that the existing tower and house have undergone a number of changes since they were built in 1855. The dwelling's clapboards replace the original board-and-batten siding and the dormers are later additions. Further alterations were made with the removal of the narrow connecting passageway between the house and tower.

The diminutive brick oil house, constructed in 1895, is typical of other similar buildings erected at this time. It features a ridge-mounted ventilator and a door surmounted by a transom in one gable end.

The rectangular, gable-roofed fuel house is a wooden frame building sheathed in wood shingles. Constructed in 1905, the building has a large double door and window in one gable end and a smaller side door and central window in the opposite end. Small windows punctuate the sides.