Light Savers

Susan Brennan (now Garner) heard about the discussion among members of the Borough Council in the fall of 1980. Her husband E. Thomas Brennan had a law practice on Washington Blvd. and did work for the town. He later served almost three decades as Sea Girt Municipal Judge.

The Sea Girt Lighthouse, purchased from the Coast Guard in 1956 for $11,000, came with the stipulation that the town could not sell the property for 20 years. The restriction was well past, and the building was showing its 1896 age. The roof, porch, and windows were rotting and leaking. Most of the whitewash on the bricks the town applied in the 50s was long gone. As with any home by the water, the constant salt exposure had taken its toll.

The options for the town were to knock down the historic structure and capture the property for another public use or sell the valuable real estate. Parking was in short supply, the voters had turned down a chance to build an administration building at the railroad plaza. That suggestion almost cost Mayor Black his position. Selling was politically unpopular. They feared losing the small library space and modest meeting space provided by the lighthouse, but the conditions were reaching a point of liability for the borough. If they were to keep the building, it would take a major investment. It was shuttered in 1980. Birdsall Engineering estimated $80,000 in repairs to make it safe.

Susan worked with her friends, many of whom were members of the Junior Women’s Club, Sea Girt, and Spring Lake division. The junior clubs sprang up as a way for the younger women to get involved in civic affairs. Many single and young married women preferred the company of contemporaries, and many women’s clubs were closed to new members.

The club made Christmas ornaments as a fundraiser. Maggie Bossett provided, (Henry Bossett photo)

Susan rallied Joan Calhoun of 5th Ave, who was the President of the Junior Women’s Club at the time. Joan would go on to serve nine years as the Board of Education President, and her tenure was marked by SGES gaining its excellent reputation.

With Ellen Meixsell, another club officer behind her, Susan made presentations to the other civic organizations in Sea Girt. She got the Woman’s Club, the Sea Girt PTO, the Sea Girt Real Estate Owners Inc., the Women’s Auxiliary of the Sea Girt Fire Company and, the Holly Club to each designate a representative to form a Save the Lighthouse Committee, and to canvas the entire town to get them to support the need to keep the building. They went door-to-door with a fact sheet and a survey and found overwhelming support for the Lighthouse.

The problem was that for the town to make a major expenditure on the building using municipal financing, there needed to be a ballot referendum, which legally could not occur for another year. It was too late for the November 1980 election. Susan was concerned that if they waited until Election Day 1981, and then the funding, the cost of repairs might climb, and the building would be lost.

Purchasing the property was too expensive and might open the building and land to a bidding process. When meeting a roadblock, figure out a way around it. Susan used the results of her survey to claim that if the people were willing to pay for repairs through their taxes, why couldn’t they be solicited to do it via fundraising?

A lease from the town was proposed on April 7th. The temporary Save the Lighthouse Committee proposed that a new entity be formed to raise the money, maintain the house, and take the burden off the borough. The government moves slower than anyone likes. The council had the proposal and had not yet decided in early June. The urgency was to be able to fundraise during the busy summer season. The subject was on the June meeting agenda, and the Committee advertised for people to attend the council meeting.

The strong show of support got the approval. The Sea Girt Lighthouse Citizens’ Committee was swiftly formed with Councilman William and Nancy MacInnes’s address, 101 Baltimore Blvd. He would serve as the first President. The council drafted an ordinance for the lease and publicly posted it in the newspaper.

The Trustees included Susan Brennan and Joan Calhoun, and then a large list of citizens on a rotating three-year schedule to ensure the organization would thrive. John Decastro, Charels Hoffman, James Mulvihill, Mrs. Pierce Sherman, Mrs. Eugene Walsh, and Mrs. Bruce Overhauser, Mrs. Patrick R. Deignan, Mrs. James F. Gilbert, Mrs. Harold T Hall, Jr., E. Dayton Jones, William M. MacInnes, and Mrs. Gladstone T. Whitman, William W Graham, Mrs. E. Dayton Jones, Nancy MacInnes, and Frank A. Prettyman.

They quickly put together a series of fundraisers. “Save the Lighthouse Day” was held at the Guard Camp in July. It was a carnival with games and rides, a flea market, a bake shop, and a lighthouse boutique. Volunteers from the Junior Women’s Club made handmade Christmas ornaments.

The signing of the lease anniversary party is the primary fundraiser for the lighthouse. (Sea Girt Lighthouse website)

In September, they signed the 25-year $1 lease under a yellow tent on the grounds of the Lighthouse at a cocktail party. They were well on the way to raising the initial repairs they estimated at $60,000.

The all-volunteer, non-profit Committee took full responsibility for the building’s maintenance and preservation of its history. They fully restored the building and gained an extension of the agreement to 2056. The building is available to Sea Girt taxpayers for their use for a small fee, and open to the public on Sundays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., except on holiday weekends, from mid-April through the Sunday before Thanksgiving. https://seagirtlighthouse.com/