Guardian on the Cliff; Point Vicente Lighthouse, California

Lighthouses must be one of the most appealing and evocative forms of architecture. They’re featured in photo calendars, greeting cards and travel posters, perched on a rocky crag above crashing waves, or, in mild weather, serenely poised above the azure sea, like Battery Point Light in Crescent City, California.

When I grew up in the Midwest, the closest lighthouse was one of the 20 or so on the south shore of Lake Erie, about 200 miles to the north. I never saw any of them, and associated lighthouses with the ocean, which was 600 miles to the east.

Now, living by a different ocean, 2,200 miles to the west, I’ve written about an old lighthouse, Point Fermin, a few miles from me. It’s no longer in operation, but there is a far more dramatic one a few miles to the west, still guarding the coast: Point Vicente Light.

The 67 foot tower was built in 1926. Combined with its location on a bluff 130 feet above the ocean and the 1.1 million candlepower of the light, it’s visible from 24 miles at sea in clear weather. In the next photo, you can see Santa Catalina Island on the horizon, 22 miles to the south.

The Catalina Strait between the mainland and the island is an extremely busy shipping lane. The entrance of the Port of Los Angeles is about 8 miles to the east. Ships have sometimes come to grief on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

The lighthouse occupies a stunningly beautiful spot on a promontory. The light is now automated and maintained by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Aids to Navigation Team. Some USCG staff live on the property. I interviewed a former commander of the Los Angeles USCG base who was billeted there, and he described what a wonderful spot it was for his young family at the time. No doubt!

Lighthouse aficionados know that the heart of any light resides in its refracting lens and the mechanism that rotates it. Point Vicente Light is noted for possessing its original hand-ground fresnel lens, manufactured in Paris in 1910. The city of Los Angeles was radically different in 1926, and the peninsula was almost entirely open range. But the light still shines from Point Vicente.

Seeing the Light

Point Vicente Light is at 31550 Palos Verdes Drive West, Rancho Palos Verdes, California. It isn’t the most convenient driving destination in Los Angeles. Here’s a map that also references some other Under Western Skies blog post locales, so you can plan an entire day.

Point Vicente is due south of LAX and downtown Los Angeles. Interstate 110, the Harbor Freeway, is the nearest freeway access (map, upper right). It ends and continues on Gaffey Street, south through San Pedro (blue line and arrows). To the left (east) of downtown are the Port of Los Angeles, the Battleship Iowa (red box, right) and the subject of my most recent post, the Harry Bridges memorial. Point Fermin lighthouse is at the bottom right (red rectangle).

Continue through San Pedro and turn right (west) on 25th street, which becomes Palos Verdes Drive South. It’s 7.5 miles from Gaffey Street to the lighthouse. The road hugs the coast, along the top of bluffs, with views across the strait toward Santa Catalina. You’ll pass lovely Abalone Cove, across the road from the remarkable Wayfarers Chapel, designed by Lloyd Wright (blue rectangle).

Once you pass the Terranea Resort, take the next left to access both the lighthouse and the Point Vicente Interpretative Center, which I mentioned recently as an excellent place for whale watching, with experts from the American Cetacean Society on hand during whale season (December-May).

Tours of the lighthouse are available on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Currently, the lighthouse tower is closed, so you won’t be able to climb up to see the big lens, but you can visit the grounds. Check the website for updates.

A good vantage point to photograph the lighthouse is on your return leg. There’s a pull-off with parking spaces (red star) before you reach Terranea, from which I shot the two west-facing photographs above, as well as this one, looking southeast with Catalina on the horizon.

Do you have a favorite lighthouse? Tell us about it in a comment.

Some of the photographs in this post and select images from other Under Western Skies posts are available at Shutterstock.com. Click on the linked photos, or CLICK HERE to view the Underawesternsky photo portfolio.

© Brad Nixon 2018. Battery Point Light photo © M. Vincent 2018, used by kind permission. Ms. Vincent’s portfolio is available at Picfair.com. Maps © Google.