All summer, two rows of scaffolding with orange weatherproof sheeting have wrapped the top of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, just below the lantern room. Behind the sheeting, a crew of five masons and metalworkers is carrying out a $1 million restoration. Lighthouse keeper Meghan Agresto told Coastal Review in August that she expects the work to be finished "by the end of October," and added that "many lighthouse things are weather-dependent." If that forecast holds, the tower will be clear of scaffolding for the final weeks of its 2026 climbing season, which ends November 30.
The project was paid for by people walking through the door. Outer Banks Conservationists, the Manteo-based nonprofit that owns and runs the lighthouse, funds its large projects mostly from visitors. Each $13 climb this fall helps pay for the work on the brick it climbs through.
Paid for at the base of the tower
Agresto described the funding model in plain terms. "Funding for big projects comes directly from our visitors, rather than from federal appropriations, which makes it possible for us to keep pace with cyclical maintenance instead of allowing needs to accumulate over decades," she told Coastal Review.
OBC Executive Director Ladd Bayliss gave the Outer Banks Voice the same picture of the organization as a whole. "No recurring grants," she said. "We don't rely on state or federal funding. We fund through donations and people who walk through our doors, and we seek grants for capital projects as they occur." She put OBC's annual operating budget at about $2 million, with contributions and admissions making up the largest share of revenue. The lighthouse and OBC's other site, Island Farm, together draw close to 85,000 visitors a year, according to the N.C. Coastal Land Trust.
The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse shows what a different model looks like. It sits within Cape Hatteras National Seashore, is managed by the National Park Service, and is in the middle of what Coastal Review calls "a major, multiyear project." By Agresto's description, the Currituck job is more routine: a periodic project that does not depend on multimillion-dollar government grants.
There is also a link between the two towers. ICC Commonwealth, the New York company doing this summer's work in Corolla, is the same firm that moved the Hatteras Lighthouse 2,900 feet south in 1999.
What the crew is actually doing up there
According to Agresto, the scope covers four things:
- Brick repointing across the tower's exterior, using natural hydraulic lime tinted to match the original mortar
- The historic gallery door, cleared of rust by needle scaling and then restabilized
- Railings on the gallery
- The underside of the lantern deck, including the sunburst prisms that once let light from the oil lamp reach the tower's interior
The repointing matters most. Removing crumbling mortar and replacing it limits how much water gets into the tower, and Agresto told the Outer Banks Voice, "A lot of places, the mortar had just fallen out." The brick itself needs no paint. The tower's red exterior has never been painted, and it is the only lighthouse in North Carolina left that way. That was a deliberate choice, so mariners could tell it apart in daylight from the black-and-white striped towers along the coast.
The prisms get careful treatment too. Any that cannot be saved will be replaced with reproductions marked as replacements, so later restorers can tell original glass from new. The gallery door has its own detail. OBC notes that the lighthouse may be the only one of its kind where the door can still be double-closed to either the watch room or the outdoor gallery.
Most of the work is on the tower's exterior, and the stairs have stayed open for climbing throughout.
A five-to-seven-year rhythm
This restoration is one round in a regular cycle. The tower's iron needs rust treatment every five to seven years, Agresto said. The last round, in 2020 and 2021, also covered crack repair on the lower iron bands, new cornice pieces on the roof, rust work around the tower windows, and stabilizing the wood in those five windows. This summer's project builds directly on that work.
The way the site is staffed follows the original pattern as well. Agresto and her husband, Luis, live on the grounds, as the first keepers did. The site's history explains why that matters. After the Coast Guard automated the light in 1937, the keepers' quarters sat empty and fell into disrepair until local preservationists formed OBC in 1980 and began restoring it. OBC bought the tower and its historic storehouse outright in 2003. In 2022, OBC and the N.C. Coastal Land Trust placed the lighthouse and Island Farm under permanent conservation easements. "The sites can never be developed," Bayliss said.
The neighbors who climb it
Visitors cover most of the admissions, but Agresto describes a second, quieter group of climbers who live nearby:
"For locals, it's less about visiting than living alongside it," she told the Outer Banks Voice, describing the soft yellow light that bathes the streets at night and the option to buy a season pass and climb the 220 steps every morning. "I do think people here have a sense of ownership and appreciation. The community feels like it's theirs."
Two things those climbers pass every day hold up because of this kind of upkeep. The spiral iron staircase is bolted together, not welded, a pre-welding construction choice that has lasted a century and a half. At the top, the original first-order Fresnel lens is still in nightly use, and only a handful of lighthouses in the country still run on their original lens. That lens produces a 20-second flash visible from 18 nautical miles away.
The weeks left, in order
As of October 4, the season has just under eight weeks left. The tower is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., weather permitting, and closes for thunder, big storms and Thanksgiving Day. You pay at the front of the lighthouse by cash, check or card. There is no advance or online ticketing, and climbers must be at least 4 years old. The rest of Historic Corolla Village and Historic Corolla Park follows a calendar that lines up with the tower's closing weeks:
- Late October. The keeper's target for finishing the restoration, depending on weather. No update has been published since August, so the scaffolding may come down later.
- Saturday, November 7. The Corolla Wild Horse Fund's Fall Open House runs 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Betsy Dowdy Equine Center in Grandy, on the mainland. Visitors can walk among rescued horses and watch free screenings of The Secret of Corolla at 10 and 11 a.m. The suggested donation is $10 per vehicle. Back in the village, the Fund's Wild Horse Museum and Gift Shop at 1130E Corolla Village Road is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Thursday, November 26. Thanksgiving Day. The lighthouse is closed.
- Friday, November 27. The 11th Annual Christmas Craft Village fills Whalehead in Historic Corolla Park from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with local arts-and-crafts vendors and food. Admission is free.
- November 27 and 28. Corolla Village Christmas runs 4 to 8 p.m. both evenings, with holiday lights, more than 30 local artists, food, live music and family activities. No tickets are needed. The same weekend, Whalehead starts its Candlelight Tours, 5 to 6:30 p.m. at $20 per person by advance reservation. They continue on Fridays and Saturdays through December 19, but the listing already shows several dates sold out, including both nights of Thanksgiving weekend, so check availability before you plan around them.
- Monday, November 30. The last day of the 2026 climbing season.
- Tuesday, December 1. OBC holds a free climb from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and asks for donations to support ongoing preservation.
The last date has the most history behind it. The Currituck Beach Light first shone on December 1, 1875, and closed the last dark 40-mile gap between Cape Henry and Bodie Island. Coastal Review notes the tower turns 151 this December. OBC's listing does not call the free climb an anniversary event, but it falls on the date the light was first lit, one day after the paid season ends. If the restoration finishes on schedule, the free climb will also be one of the first chances to see the repointed tower without scaffolding.
Visitors' admissions paid for the new mortar, and the December 1 climb lets anyone go up the restored tower at no charge, with a donation request for the next round of upkeep.
If you own near Historic Corolla Village, or you're thinking about a second home within sight of that 20-second flash, it helps to know how the landmarks next door are cared for and paid for. Sarah Collier is happy to talk through life on Corolla's north end in the off-season, from the closing weeks of the climbing season to the quiet stretch after it. Let's Connect.
