Beacon of Light
Chuck Clarke of Point Betsie Lighthouse
After growing up vacationing with his family in Benzie County, Chuck Clarke has devoted years to helping preserve one of the community’s key assets and oldest standing building: the Point Betsie Lighthouse
Summers in Northern Michigan leave a lifelong impression. Just ask Chuck Clarke, a Kalamazoo native who grew up spending family vacations in Beulah on Crystal Lake. After attending Western Michigan University and serving over 20 years in the Marine Corps, Chuck was ready to fulfill his wish of settling in Northern Michigan full time. He and his wife bought his family’s property – and the adjoining lot – to build the dream house they now call home.
It didn’t take long for Chuck to give back to his new community. He became county administrator for Benzie County in 1998, a role he served for 11 years before becoming treasurer for the Friends of Point Betsie for eight years. Organized in 2002, Friends of Point Betsie is a non-profit organization that supports the preservation and management of the Point Betsie Lighthouse, which has been guiding mariners on Lake Michigan since 1858 and is regarded as the last lighthouse to be automated on the Great Lakes as of 1983.
Michigan is home to more lighthouses than any other U.S. state. Among the programs supported by the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) is the Lighthouse Assistance Program, which helps lighthouse stewards restore and repair their historic lighthouses.
In 2010, the team of architects and supporters behind Point Betsie Lighthouse’s restoration received a Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation from then-Governor Jennifer Granholm. The award recognized the project’s extensive coordination among the Friends of Point Betsie, Benzie County, the architects, the contractor, SHPO, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Michigan Lighthouse Project to complete the rehabilitation.
Today, Chuck continues to volunteer with Friends of Point Betsie and contribute efforts toward the lighthouse’s ongoing restoration and preservation, including support for the construction of the Point Betsie Light Station Shoreline Protection System. Much like Point Betsie Lighthouse itself, Chuck is a beacon of light for his community.
When did your interest in Michigan’s lighthouses – and Point Betsie in particular – begin, and how did you get involved?
I wasn’t particularly interested in lighthouses growing up, but my mother was. I visited places like Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, and my mother would have pictures around the house. We would visit Point Betsie when we were here in summer as a kid. In fact, they still had the black lantern until the late 50s, when they painted it red. I didn't really realize that until we got to the restoration effort.
The Coast Guard relinquished Point Betsie to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 1996. A lot of these lighthouses go to other agencies, like the Department of Natural Resources. BLM held a meeting in 2000 here, and as County Administrator, I was invited to attend. We wanted to see if Benzie County would be interested in taking over or becoming the owners. I was put in charge of a committee. We had no idea how to manage, let alone fund a lighthouse. That went on for a couple years, and we all wanted to do it. We wanted to preserve the lighthouse because it's the focal point of the community, and we all loved it. Then your interest develops, and then you become passionate about it.
Administratively, it's a long process. This all started back in 2000. We looked at other lighthouses and talked to people in North Port and Ludington. We ended up hiring Quinn Evans, architects out of Ann Arbor, to do a feasibility study. We needed a management report and a development report – how were we going to restore the buildings, how were we going to fund and manage it. SHPO very much supported us during this early process. They liked the idea of a local government and a nonprofit partnering to put this together; we created our own nonprofit, the Friends of Point Betsie. We got ownership transferred from BLM to Benzie County in 2004.
What can visitors of Point Betsie Lighthouse expect with the latest restoration efforts?
We sell tickets to the public, and that's grown over the years. I expect it to grow even more in the years to come. Other lighthouses mainly work off the gift shops, and so we had that and it’s a very productive gift shop. That new building, which was built in 2014 and replaced the old garage, also contains the maritime museum. We’ve also accommodated the public with a new restroom that serves those visiting both the lighthouse and the nearby beach.
We have a museum with an emphasis on maritime; there's a boat in there, and maritime history of the area. The Nature Conservancy has a room in the lighthouse to depict the work that they do. We have a room upstairs on the second floor that we rent out to the public. That's a nice little revenue complement.
When it comes to historic restoration and preservation of the lighthouse, how are things like paint color and design approached?
It's so intricate. The architect Mike Quinn was from Quinn Evans, which specializes in restoring historic buildings. He came out and did a paint study. For the window trim, you have two different shades of green around the window, and that has to be exactly right. The building has to be white, and the roof has to be red.
One time, Mike and a construction guy from Mihm Enterprises in Hamilton, which specializes in lighthouse restoration, were looking at this little sphere on each end of the roof and discussing whether they should be 4.5 or 5 inches. I looked at the then-president of the Friends of Point Betsie Amy Ferris and said, ‘What are they talking about?’ That’s the level of detail they had that I didn’t know.
I also grew up with that lantern being red, and I asked Mike, ‘Why can't we just keep it red?’ He said that historically, the particular period of significance was 1945, and we had to duplicate that. We couldn’t just go in and do something else. I understood that. I learned to appreciate that a lot more as time went on. In fact, even SHPO had to approve not only the architect, but the builder, too.
What you forget in doing all of this is you can't just restore everything and then go home and say, ‘we're done,’ because it deteriorates. If you've been on the west coast of Lake Michigan, particularly up here, it beats the heck out of that building, and especially the tower. About every four or five years, the tower needs painting, and every 10 years or so, the lighthouse needs painting.
The Fog Signal Building was restored to the period where it had a red metal roof and siding, while the lighthouse and storage building were restored with wooden shakes as the period depicted. So, with the sun and the wind, we’re looking at about every five years for repainting. We have an endowment plan to set aside the money for these projects, because every four or five years you could spend $100,000 doing all that paintwork.
What do you enjoy about being in Michigan where you've built this history and your life?
This particular area is so scenic. Even as a kid when I got here, I would think, ‘this is wonderful.’ When we lived downstate, we used to go to Lake Michigan on a day trip. But this? This is magnificent. This is where I always wanted to be and build a house.
At this point, I want to pause and enjoy the sunsets every night, because we have a view of the Western sky. And the hill faces the Eastern sky. I like to sit out there with my dog at about five o'clock and watch the eagles fly along that hill and the birds flying back and forth, and the monarchs. We have a power boat, so we spend time on the water. And every morning, I wake up and think, ‘gosh, this place is beautiful.’
