Nasuset Light and Lightkeeper’s House at Cape Cod National Seashore

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See the Lighthouses web page for an interactive location map.

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NAUSET LIGHTHOUSE TOURS

The Nauset Lighthouse is located in the Eastham area of Cape Cod National Seashore. It is typically open for climbing on select days of the week starting in May and continuing through October. There is no charge, but donations are very much appreciated. Climbing hours are usually from 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM because parking for the lighthouse is at the Nauset Light Beach parking lot, and during the day there is a fee to park, not to mention that the lot is pretty much packed until the late afternoon. For a schedule, visit the Nauset Light Preservation Society website, the organization that maintains the lighthouse.

A fairly decent-size line for climbing the lighthouse forms at opening time, so you might want to come a little later in the evening to avoid the crowd. I arrived around 6:30 PM and didn’t have much of a wait. The Three Sisters Lighthouses are just down the street, so check out the Three Sisters first and then head over to the Nauset Light when the crowd has thinned out.

Nauset Lighthouse at Cape Cod National Seashore

As with any lighthouse, only a set number of people can be inside at one time. A volunteer stationed at the base lectures about the lighthouse’s history while you wait to go up, which on a busy day could be as long as an hour. There is another volunteer stationed at the top to answer any questions you might have. Visitors are not allowed into the lantern area where the lens is, so you are confined to the tower itself (you can look up into the lantern area from below). There are some porthole-style windows at the top, but none of the views are all that great.

Interior view of the Nauset Lighthouse (looking towards the top) at Cape Cod National Seashore

The white building next to the lighthouse was once the oil house, the storage facility for the oil that was burned in the lamp. Today it houses three information panels that detail the history of Nauset Light and its 1996 move 300 feet from near the edge of the eroding cliff to its present location. Erosion averages 3-4 feet per year in the Eastham area, so the lighthouse should be good for another hundred years before erosion threatens it once more.

Oil house for the Nauset Lighthouse at Cape Cod National Seashore

The Lightkeeper’s House is also on the property, but it is now a private residence. It was built in 1875 and occupied by the current lightkeeper and his family until 1950, at which time the men working at the Nauset Lifesaving Station were put in charge of maintaining the light. Two years later the light was automated and everyone was out of a job.

Nauset Lighthouse keeper’s house from 1875, Cape Cod National Seashore

LIGHTHOUSE HISTORY

Lighthouses on Cape Cod date back to 1797 when the Highland Lighthouse (aka Cape Cod Lighthouse) went into operation on the north end of the outer cape. Lighthouses were also placed at the south end of the lower cape at Chatham and in the center of the outer cape at Nauset. At the time, technology did not allow for the lights to blink or rotate in a distinctive pattern, so for mariners to tell them apart and thus know their location, one lighthouse was used at Highland, two at Chatham, and three at Nauset.

The original three lighthouses at Nauset were known as the Three Sisters: brick structures only 15 feet tall that went into operation in 1838. The winter storms constantly eroded the cliffs, and soon the three lighthouses were close to falling into the sea. In 1892 they were replaced with lighter wooden towers that could be moved inland when needed. The original brick towers were left in place, and they eventually toppled off the cliff.

By 1911, technology was advanced enough so that lights could be distinguished by blinking and rotating patterns, so multiple lighthouses were no longer needed. Two of the Three Sisters were decommissioned and eventually sold off at auction to private buyers in 1918, while one remained to serve as the Nauset Lighthouse until being replaced by one of the Chatham lighthouses in 1923—the same lighthouse that stands on the site today.

The Chatham Lighthouse was originally built in 1877. The tower is 48 feet tall and made of cast iron; the interior is lined with brick. It was first placed 200 feet back from where the Three Sisters towers were in 1911. By 1996, it was in jeopardy of falling off the cliff once more, so it was moved back 300 feet. To put this into perspective, the original lighthouses from 1838 were located 600 feet from the position of the current Nauset Light, and they were probably a hundred or so feet from the cliff at the time. Today, that would put the original lighthouses somewhere around 100 feet out in the ocean.

The Lightkeeper’s House was moved in 1998. The National Park Service offered the owner, Mary Daubenspeck, a free move—a $100,000 value—plus the property to put it on in exchange for her donating it to the National Park Service with the caveat that she could continue living in the house for twenty-five years (starting in 1999). Mary’s other option was to foot the bill for the move herself and find another piece of property, which would separate the house from the lighthouse. Because she wanted the house to be kept with the lighthouse and preserved for historical purposes, she made the deal with the National Park Service. The Lightkeeper’s House will become open the public in 2024.

All three of the original Three Sisters Lighthouses were purchased from private owners by the National Park Service and restored in the 1980s. They are now located just a quarter mile down Cable Road from the Nauset Lighthouse.

Three Sisters Lighthouses at Cape Cod National Seashore

SCHEDULING YOUR TIME

Plan to spend an hour to climb Nauset Lighthouse, which takes into consideration a waiting period. Even if you arrive and climb immediately, you’ll still spend a half hour talking with a volunteer and reading the information in the oil house.

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