By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – Nestled on the edge of the forest on Cape Perpetua’s north flank is one of the most unique lighthouses in Oregon.
The Cleft of the Rock Lighthouse flashed its signature signal – red, white, red — every 10 seconds to sailors navigating the central coast from 1982 until 2014. It was one of only two private lighthouse homes in Oregon — the other is the Pelican Bay Lighthouse in Brookings — listed on nautical charts and certified as a private aide to navigation by the U.S. Coast Guard.
The 47-year-old home incorporates an exact replica of the former Fiddle Reef Lighthouse in Oak Bay, B.C. and its light – perched 134 feet above sea level — is an aerial beacon once used for navigation on Solander Island on the northwest corner of Vancouver Island.
The 1,800 square-foot house is now for sale by Ray Pedrick, the last lighthouse keeper and son-in-law of the man whose passion for all things seafaring culminated in the dream of building a lighthouse home. The asking price is $2,225,000.
“When you are talking about this place you are talking about a person’s particular love for the sea, for shipping, for history and stuff like that,” Pedrick said. “You’re seeing a classic example of somebody who had a certain kind of love from a very young age.”
A nautical life
When Jim Gibbs was a boy growing up in Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, he knew every ship that came in – knew their captains and crews, and would jump on his bike and pedal to the docks to greet them as they arrived. The men in turn knew him by name and gave him free rein to roam their ships.
Gibbs served in the Coast Guard during World War II and later worked as a keeper at the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse. He was a writer of all things nautical, publishing 22 books. He worked as an editor of Marine Digest magazine out of Seattle and was one of the founders of the Puget Sound Historical Society.
Gibbs and his wife, Cherie, were living in Maui when they began looking for a location on the Oregon coast to build their dream home. It was 1971 when they discovered the 5.2 acres of land along the 1914 Wagon Road that terminated at the Heceta Head Lighthouse.
“They bought the property on kind of whim,” Pedrick said. “They couldn’t find what they wanted. They were walking out of a local real estate owner’s office who said, ‘Well, as an afterthought, there is one property but nobody wants to hassle with it. It’s going to take some building and it needs a road.’ And Jim and Sherry perked up at that and said, ‘Maybe we need to talk.’ ”
The Cleft of the Rock Lighthouse, named for a Bible passage and hymn – “He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock” — was designed by local architect Edward Miyakawa and built by what was then Hoen and Hamilton Construction.
It was only after construction was completed in 1976 that Gibbs, after experimenting with smaller lanterns and lenses, tracked down and purchased a Canadian surplus aerial beacon that came available after its location on Solander Island became too difficult to service.
“They took it up in pieces; it’s a monster,” Pedrick said. “It is made by a very old company that made the original lighthouse lenses in Crowley, England – Stone and Chance. Stone also made the lens at Heceta Head Lighthouse.”
Steep ladder-style stairs lead from the lighthouse’s ground floor, which also serves as the home’s foyer, to a second-floor watch room where Gibbs’ writing desk is stationed at a sea-facing window. The third-story houses the barrel lens.
“It’s called a barrel lens because it looks like a barrel,” Pedrick said. “And again, it has the prismatic effects on it as a way of refracting light, I call it super-charging light. And then you blast it through a bullseye area and super-charging it in that way you can take a little oil flame and with a first-order lens you can shoot it 20 miles out to sea.”
Gibbs used energy-efficient halogen bulbs that are easy on the electric bill to shine a light that could be seen 10 miles offshore.
“We’ve known fisherman who mentioned seeing it,” Pedrick said. “It goes back aways. I don’t think they used it for navigational purposes but they liked to look at it. When it was crabbing season back in the day you could easily look out and see 70 crabbing ships with lights shining at night. It was like a different city out there.”
After Cherie’s death in 1999 and Gibbs in 2010, the home passed to their daughter, Debbie, and her husband, Ray.
“Deb and I kept it operational up until 2014,” Pedrick said. “I’d been keeping it running. To me, it’s an old English lens and it’s like trying to work on an English sports car. But I kept it operational for about 20 years. And finally, the motor gave out on it. I had a backup motor that was not good. And then about that time my wife Deb was taking a downturn on her health.”
The couple decided it was time to retire the light and end the annual inspections by the Coast Guard auxiliary, which had become a “good time to get together and have a cup of coffee and catch up on each other’s lives.”
Today, the interior of the home resembles a curated maritime museum, filled with historic relics and photographs collected by the Gibbs’ and cared for by the now widowed Pedrick, who when not volunteering as a docent at Heceta Light Station, gives an occasional tour of the historic house.
And while the lighthouse is no longer operational – that doesn’t mean it no longer shines a light across the dark waters of the Pacific.
“I fire up the toy lens on Jim’s birthday and on the day he died,” Pedrick said.
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
Wonderful an unique house.
Very special. Great view. Solidly built.
Good story. It was Hoen.