For a small fee, qualified volunteers can spend a week or two at one of the nation's best-preserved and most comfortable lighthouses‹the Grand Traverse Lighthouse at the tip of Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula.

With its signature white brick walls and red roofs, the stately Grand Traverse Lighthouse has long been a landmark at the tip of Michigan's scenic Leelanau Peninsula. (Photo Courtesy of the Grand Traverse Lighthouse Foundation)
Keepers do minor chores around the isolated facility, which now does double duty as a historical museum, but their main task is to help the hundreds of visitors who stop in to look at the place and wander through its elegantly restored interior.

"We're mainly looking for people who are outgoing and willing to meet with the public," says Mike Connolly, the museum's program director.

"It's not hard work, but the days can be pretty long, especially in summer when you can get 300 to 400 visitors in a day. The spring and fall isn't as busy, but then you might be painting or fixing walls or things like that."

The work was once a good deal more grueling. For more than a century, a dedicated cadre of men and women lived in isolated lighthouses along the beaches, shoals and estuaries of America's waterways, faithfully tending the lights that warned passing ships away from harm. Life was often lonely, and sometimes dangerous ‹ but it also had an inescapable air of beauty and romance that persists even in this age when automation has made all but a handful of lighthouses obsolete.

Established in 1850, the Grand Traverse Lighthouse is one of the oldest lights on the Great Lakes. It occupies a lonely point of rocky coast (now the site of a state park) marking the outer edge of Grand Traverse Bay, with sweeping views of Lake Michigan and the distant Manitou and Fox Islands. After the Coast Guard closed the facility in 1972, lighthouse aficionados banded together to purchase the property and restore it as a museum.

Today, the handsome white brick building is furnished in the style of the early 20th century and has become a popular tourist destination. From May to November, an estimated 7,000 visitors make the journey to the lighthouse‹and hundreds more return in early December for the museum's popular Christmas Open House, which features a traditional delivery of holiday presents by a Coast Guard helicopter from nearby Traverse City.

"There are few lighthouses that have Keeper programs which offer participants the experience of living for a week or two in a historic lighthouse," said museum curator Stephanie Staley. "Working as a Keeper can be rewarding. The magnificent view from the tower is amazing."

Would-be Keepers, who pay $195 a week to live in an apartment of the lighthouse, need to be "energetic, comfortable speaking with the public, in excellent health, able to climb stairs and able to work long hours." During their stay, they can expect to greet visitors and provide them with historical information.

The volunteer Keeper program was tried for the first time during the 2004 season and was "quite a success," says Connolly. Some slots for the summer of 2005 filled up as soon as they were posted, he said, but there are still openings available in the spring and fall months.

For more information about the Grand Traverse Lighthouse Museum and its volunteer Keeper program, contact Grand Traverse Lighthouse Foundation at P.O. Box 43, Northport, MI 49670 or call (231) 386-7195.

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