Point Vicente Lighthouse
— the lamp the whales pass twice a year.
Not only on a wall.
“A 67-foot white tower above the cliffs at the southwestern edge of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, lit since March 1, 1926. The lens is original, a third-order Fresnel sent west from a French maker, and the beam reaches roughly twenty nautical miles out over the San Pedro Channel. Pacific gray whales pass the headland on their way south in December and January, and again, with calves, on the way north between February and May. The grounds beside the station hold the city-run interpretive center, with whale-watching benches above the surf.
Point Vicente 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.
Point Vicente sits on the southwestern bluff of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, south of Los Angeles. The light was authorized after the loss of several vessels along the rocky stretch between Point Fermin and Point Dume, and went into service on March 1, 1926. The 67-foot tower stands on a bluff roughly 130 feet above mean sea level, putting the focal plane of the light near 185 feet. It remains an active United States Coast Guard navigation aid. The Palos Verdes coastline beneath the station drops in coastal terraces toward sea caves and tidepools at low water, beneath the cliffs of the peninsula.
The lamp is the original third-order Fresnel lens, manufactured in France in 1886 and shipped to California for installation in 1926. It rotates on its old clockwork-derived gear and throws a beam that reaches roughly twenty nautical miles in clear air. Salt fog along the bluff occasionally clouds the inside of the lantern, a recurring quirk that earned the station its local nickname, the Lady of the Light. The most striking time on the bluff is the hour after sunset, when the rotating beam first becomes visible against the indigo of the San Pedro Channel. Catalina Island sits on the horizon twenty-two miles offshore.
The Pacific gray whale migration brings the bluff to life twice a year. Southbound whales pass Point Vicente from mid-December through early February, on their way to calving lagoons in Baja California. Northbound passage runs from February into May, with cow-and-calf pairs travelling close to shore. The Point Vicente Interpretive Center keeps an annual census from December 1 through mid-May, staffed by the American Cetacean Society and now one of the longest continuous gray whale counts on the Pacific coast. The best viewing rail sits just north of the lighthouse fence, on the city-run grounds.