By GILLIAN GRAHAM
Staff Writer

Brad Coupe and Sheri Poftak get excited when they talk about Wood Island Lighthouse.
They are members of the Friends of Wood Island Lighthouse, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the lighthouse and associated buildings on Wood Island off the coast of Biddeford. A restoration project that started late last month will provide fixes to the tower and adjoining oil room.
For Coupe and Poftak, the work is long overdue and an encouraging step toward completely restoring the building they fell in love with.
“People become infected with the same enthusiasm as FOWIL,” Coupe said. “Everyone who gets near it feels that way. It’s a magical place.”
Coupe said the tower restoration work is scheduled to be done in early December, but weather conditions could change the date. He said the contractor, Stone Age Masonry of Sabattus, can’t access the island by boat when the weather is bad. For FOWIL members, the goal is the have the lighthouse be a “gleaming white gorgeous tower” by next year’s tourist season.
“We want them to really come out and have their lights knocked out when they see it,” he said.
Poftak said the tower restoration centers on removing sealer that was used to coat the tower, which does not allow the granite to breathe. It will be replaced with paint that does allow moisture to escape and will be less likely to peel.
The $100,000 project is funded entirely by membership donations and donations from summer visitors who went on lighthouse tours. The Friends also raise money through art shows, sales of lighthouse merchandise and grants. The group expects to receive another $200,000 this year in federal grants to continue restoration work on the keeper’s house.
Coupe, chairman of the FOWIL executive committee, said the organization was formed in April 2003 to address the needs of the lighthouse, which was listed on the Lighthouse Digest’s “Doomsday List” of America’s most endangered lighthouses. The Coast Guard no longer had funding available to for care and upkeep of the buildings, so the group stepped in to protect the property. The federal government retains ownership of the property.
Beyond restoration work, Coupe said FOWIL is dedicated to sharing the lighthouse and educating visitors. A year after its inception, the group began offering tours of the lighthouse in July and August of 2004. The group raised money to buy their boat, “Light Runner,” which can also transport construction supplies.
Poftak said the tours are run by volunteers who walk visitors from the one point where boats can land to the other side of the island to see the lighthouse, which is listed on the National Historic Register. Along the way, they share stories about the history of the island and the 36 keepers who tended the light during its first 200 years. More than 900 people visit the lighthouse each summer, she said.

Wood Island Lighthouse was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson in 1808. The original tower was an octagonal wooden structures that rotted by the 1830s. A granite tower was erected in 1839 and the current tower was constructed in 1858. The keepers dwellings were built in 1858.
The United States Coast Guard maintains the active solar-powered beacon of the lighthouse. It has an alternating white and green beacon every 10 seconds.
Poftak said visitors usually  are enamored with the lighthouse and its history. Volunteer docents each share the stories they find most interesting, but all usually tell about the keepers and their families. She said keepers typically lived in the keeper’s house with their wives and children, carrying supplies to the island on small boat. They then carried anything they needed the half0mile to their house. The last keeper left the island in October 1986 when the light became fully automated.
“It was a big thing to do anything if you were a keeper there,” she said.
The work was hard, Poftak said, a description given by the half dozen former keepers FOWIL members have interviewed.
“Keepers had to keep the light going all night. These guys weren’t sleeping too much at night. It was quite a chore,” she said. “It was a lonely life, a hard life, but I never heard one say he didn’t love it out there.”
Coupe agreed visitors love the history of the building, but said they often are left breathless by the views from the top of the tower. Visitors climb 60 spiral granite steps to the top of the tower, where guardrails installed by FOWIL prevent them from falling 42 feet back to the bottom. At the top, the bravest visitors climb through a tiny door to an outside balcony to take in sweeping views of Saco Bay.
“It is a dramatic scene,” Coupe said. “The experience of climbing the stairs, I’ve never encountered one with the same sensation.”
“Oh my, you see far and wide,” Poftak added. “You see Cape Elizabeth, all the islands in Saco Bay. You see Mount Washington.”
While they anxiously await the completion of the tower restoration, FOWIL is planning ahead for their next project, which will likely begin restoring the keepers’ house to its original condition. That work will include adding a front porch and as many historical details as possible. They rely heavily on old photos and descriptions from former keepers, Coupe said.
FOWIL members want to continue to share the lighthouse with as many people as possible. There are 63 lighthouses in Maine – including four in York County – but most are closed to the public, Poftak said.
“We hope the lighthouse will forever be open for people to come out and get the experience,” Coupe said.
For more information about the lighthouse or to see live Web cam images, go to www.woodislandlighthouse.org.