Point Reyes Lighthouse
— — the lamp at the bottom of 308 stairs.
Not only on a wall.
“A small white lighthouse set about 294 feet above the Pacific at the western tip of Point Reyes, reached by a flight of 308 stairs down the cliff face. The lamp first lit on December 1, 1870; the first-order Fresnel lens was cut in Paris and shipped around Cape Horn. The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1975 and the optic survives in place, now stewarded by the National Park Service. Gray whales pass close in from January through April, and the lighthouse landing is among the closest points to that migration on the West Coast. The wind, when it blows, comes at the structure without anything in its way.
Point Reyes Lighthouse, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
The Point Reyes Light stands at the absolute western tip of the Point Reyes peninsula in Marin County, California, about 33 miles northwest of San Francisco. The lighthouse sits roughly 294 feet above the Pacific, partway down the headland cliff and below the typical fog layer that obscures the upper bluff. The structure is reached by a half-mile walk from the end of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, then a flight of 308 stairs from the visitor centre on the bluff. It is part of Point Reyes National Seashore, established in 1962, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
The lamp is a first-order Fresnel lens cut in Paris in 1867 and assembled inside the iron tower on completion in 1870. The optic is built from 24 vertical panels of bullseye prisms set on a brass frame; the entire assembly weighs roughly two tons and was originally driven by a clockwork weight that the keepers wound every two and a half hours through the night. The lens was illuminated first by an oil lamp, then by incandescent oil vapour, and finally by a small electric bulb before the lighthouse was decommissioned in 1975. The lens still turns in place as a historic exhibit under the National Park Service.
The lighthouse is open Friday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., weather permitting. The gate at the top of the stairs closes when sustained winds exceed roughly 40 miles per hour, which happens often through spring and summer. Parking is at the visitor centre, half a mile from the lighthouse landing on a paved walk. Gray whales migrate past the headland from January through April, and the lighthouse railing is among the closest land vantages to that migration on the West Coast. The 308 stairs are equivalent to roughly a 30-story descent and climb.