THE lights aren’t on, the electricity and running water have stopped, there are dead birds surrounded by hazardous materials and they are in a Navy-controlled ‘danger area’.
But this hasn’t stopped a man from Pennsylvania spending his life savings buying not one but two lighthouses with a mission to ‘Restore the Lighthouse, Restore the Bay.’
He hopes to transform both lighthouses into education centres dedicated to teaching people about the Chesapeake Bay area and its diverse wildlife.
During his ambitious plan Rich Cucé, who paid around £150,000 for one of the properties, will be documenting and sharing every phase of the transformation on the lighthouses on his Facebook page.
The restoration of both lighthouses is a huge undertaking but Cucé has clarified that it’s not an investment but a contribution to a forthcoming non-profit organisation.
This non-profit aims to finance and facilitate the restoration and maintenance of the lighthouse, and hopes to claw back the cash with tours, T-shirts and its own beer, sold in lighthouse-shaped bottles of course.
Additionally, he is giving up his hobbies to fully commit to seeing this project through.
“I’m not a rich guy, but enough that I sold one of my investment properties to buy this, and I’m selling more to pay for the restoration. And you know, it’ll have value when I fix it up,” Cucé told the Washington Post.
“I’m not looking to make money off of it. I’m at a point in my life where I’m just looking for something more meaningful than just another investment property or making a little bit more money.”
As well as being a yoga instructor, Cucé is the 52-year-old owner of Blastco, a company specialising in blast-cleaning and industrial painting located in Pennsylvania. The company paint-blasts trucks and trailers alongside some odd items like a log flume ride at an amusement park.
In 2021 the youngest of his four children had left for college and he was searching for a new challenge.
But after he bought the lighthouse, he read an article where commenters mocked the purchase. One wrote: “Why would anyone ever buy that?”
Once in a while Cucé thinks to himself “What am I getting myself into? How am I going to pay for it?”
Nonetheless, he is getting stuck into the project and trying to convince as many as people as possible to come along for the ride.
Cucé is hoping that merchandise on the Lighthouse Centers website, will helps raise money for the massive task ahead.
He sounds like a keeper to us.
