Latimer Reef Lighthouse sold for $225,000

The federal government has sold the Latimer Reef Lighthouse in Fishers Island Sound to the highest bidder for $225,000.

The buyer was not identified by the federal General Services Administration, which conducted an online auction for the active navigation beacon that had been declared surplus to reduce the Coast Guard's maintenance load.

GSA spokeswoman Paula Santangelo said the identity of the buyer would not be public until the sale is finalized.

When the government decides to part with lighthouses, they are offered at no cost to nonprofit groups or local governments through an application process run by the GSA with the decision on who gets the title made by the National Park Service. If no one applies, as with Lattimer Reef, the site is placed up for auction and there is no restriction on who can bid.

But the Coast Guard continues to operate and maintain the lights and foghorns in any case.

Since no nonprofit group or local government expressed interest in Latimer Reef, the GSA listed it June 30 on an online auction site - auctionrp.com - for sale to the highest bidder starting at $10,000. The sale ended last Monday with a high bid of $225,000.

Twenty-one bidders registered to take part in the sale and a dozen of them toured the offshore structure Aug. 3.

Latimer Reef Lighthouse is the oldest cast-iron lighthouse still in service in the Northeast. The 55-foot-tall lighthouse began operation in 1884 and was automated in 1983. According to the East End Lighthouses preservation group, it was named after James Latemore who during the Revolutionary War set out in a skiff to spy on the British fleet at anchor in Fishers Island Sound.