Filed November 3, 2026

Every price we can confirm for a lighthouse the US government auctioned

By 2023 the US government had sold about 70 lighthouses at public auction, raising about $10 million, and given away 81 more. Auction prices have run from $10,000 to $933,888, the record paid for Graves Light in Boston Harbor in 2013.

Sources: GSA, August 2023 (totals) and GSA via the New York Times News Service, May 2023 (price range). Every row below links to where its price was reported.

150+left federal hands

70sold at auction

81given away free

~$10Mraised at auction

How the government sells a lighthouse

Under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000, lighthouses the Coast Guard no longer needs are offered first, at no cost, to eligible public bodies and nonprofits that will preserve them. The program is run jointly by the National Park Service, the Coast Guard, GSA and state historic preservation officers. When no qualified steward steps up, GSA sells the light to the public in an online auction.

Buyers get a historic structure, often on a rock or a breakwater in open water, and the job of maintaining it.

The sales

These are the GSA lighthouse auctions where we could confirm the winning or high bid from a published source. It isn't all 70 yet: GSA doesn't publish a single list, so we add a sale only when a source states its price.

GSA lighthouse auctions, oldest first
Lighthouse	Closed	Winning bid	Status	Source
Ram Island Ledge Light Casco Bay, near Portland, ME	Sep 2010	$190,000	Sold	Bangor Daily News, Sep 14, 2010
Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Light Fairport Harbor, OH	2011	$71,010	Sold	GSA blog, Aug 7, 2023
Graves Light Boston Harbor, MA Reported by AP as the most ever paid for a US lighthouse.	Aug 2013	$933,888	Sold	AP via KSL, Sep 2013 GSA blog, Aug 7, 2023
Boon Island Light off York, ME New England’s tallest lighthouse. The buyer resold it a few months later for $119,673.	Aug 2014	$78,000	Sold	WTOP, Sep 2014 Bangor Daily News, Feb 26, 2015
Halfway Rock Light Casco Bay, off Harpswell, ME The highest bid ever for a Maine lighthouse when the auction closed.	Sep 2014	$283,000	Sold	Bangor Daily News, Sep 22, 2014 Portland Press Herald, Oct 28, 2024
Saybrook Breakwater Light Old Saybrook, CT Reported sold; at the time the sale was called preliminary while a submerged-land lease was arranged.	Sep 2015	$290,000	Not confirmed	Connecticut Public, Sep 3, 2015 NBC Connecticut
Butler Flats Light New Bedford, MA	Nov 2015	$80,000	Not confirmed	WBSM
Superior Entry South Breakwater Light Superior, WI The sale never closed. The light was offered free to new stewards again in 2024.	Sep 2019	$159,000	Fell through	MPR News, Jun 20, 2024
Carysfort Reef Light off Key Largo, FL Winners had 45 days to complete the purchase.	May 2022	$415,000	Not confirmed	Keys Weekly, May 27, 2022
Sombrero Key Light off Marathon, FL	May 2022	$575,000	Not confirmed	Keys Weekly, May 27, 2022
American Shoal Light off Sugarloaf Key, FL	May 2022	$860,000	Not confirmed	Keys Weekly, May 27, 2022
Hooper Island Light Chesapeake Bay, MD	Sep 2022	$192,000	Sold	WTOP, Sep 2022
Cleveland Harbor West Pierhead Light Cleveland, OH GSA: the high bidder decided not to proceed. Offered free to new stewards again in April 2026.	Sep 2023	$425,000	Fell through	News 5 Cleveland WYSU, Apr 22, 2026

Status: “Sold” means a source reports the sale as completed. “Not confirmed” means a winning bid was reported but we haven't found confirmation that the sale closed. “Fell through” means the high bidder never completed the purchase.

A winning bid isn't always a sale

Two of the best-known results never happened. Superior Entry in Wisconsin drew a $159,000 high bid in 2019, but the sale stalled and the light was offered free again in 2024. Cleveland's West Pierhead light went for $425,000 in 2023, then the high bidderdecided not to proceed.

Penfield Reef, off Fairfield, Connecticut, has been through the cycle more than once.Patch reported in 2023 that a $360,000 winning bid had fallen through, and GSAput it up for auction again in August 2025. We haven't found a reliable source for how that round ended, so it isn't in the table.

What drives the price

The confirmed sales above span more than tenfold, from $71,010 to$933,888. The top prices went to offshore towers, Graves Light and the Florida Keys reef lights; smaller harbor and breakwater lights have sold for far less. Every buyer also takes on the cost of restoring and maintaining a historic structure, usually reachable only by boat, which is never part of the auction price.

Know a sale we're missing?

If you have a source for a GSA lighthouse auction price that isn't here, or a correction, emailhello@unclesold.com. We add rows only with a published source.

Uncle Sold is a daily game about real things the government sold. Lighthouses are rare, but they're exactly the kind of thing that ends up in the cabinet.

Sources

Open today's file