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For rent: A 2,100-square-foot house with a one-of-a-kind view of Tawas Bay, completely restored to its 1876 glory.
The cost: $275 a week.
But there's a catch. The house is attached to a 70-foot-tall lighthouse, and you'll be working six days a week, giving tours of the dwelling and beacon.
Don't let anyone touch the fourth order Fresnel lens at the top, by the way. The 4-foot tall, 2-foot diameter lens, built in Paris, is the original.
"It's just something that you can't go to a hotel and get," said Carol Garlo, a Roscommon woman who's volunteered at the lighthouse for about three years, spending the night once in a while.
The Tawas Point State Park in East Tawas is opening up the historic Tawas Point Lighthouse as part of a lighthouse keeper program, modeled after one at the Grand Traverse Lighthouse in Northport.
Participants have to fill out an application to stay there, bone up on lighthouse history, and can live, work, eat and sleep in a modernized, second-floor keeper's quarters.
They have to bring their own food, some elbow grease and also help out in the gift shop.
Up to three people (18 and older, please) can stay for up to two weeks at a time.
You'll get Wednesdays and evenings off, help support continued maintenance of the lighthouse and allow park officials to open it for tours seven days a week.
It's now staffed by volunteers and only open Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Tours are $2 per person. The keepers program will run from March 1 through Dec. 31.
There are plenty of nooks and crannies to explore at the lighthouse and home. You can do some things tourists can't, like walk onto a catwalk at the top of the lighthouse, with an unfettered and windy view of the Little Charity islands and (on a clear day) the tip of the Thumb.
There's a beach, beautiful sunsets and a path to Tawas Point, where a family of foxes live.
"It's so nice," said Garlo, a retired medical technologist.
"After everything's settled down, to be in the lighthouse is just so special. It's quiet. You can think about what it was like for the lighthouse keepers in 1880."
It certainly was more work than anyone who stays there will have to do today, said Chuck Allen, supervisor at the state park.
Originally, lighthouse keepers and their assistants (so they could sleep once in a while) had to carry a pitcher of lard oil up 85 steel, spiral steps, every four hours, to refill the light.
They also had to wind up a weight and pulley system every four hours to keep the light spinning.
Today, the light is automated and operated remotely by the U.S. Coast Guard, which has a station next to the park.
Visitors to the lighthouse this year will see something new. The home's first floor is being turned into a museum and should be finished by mid-summer. The work is the last part of exterior and interior renovations funded with state and federal grants totaling about $575,000, Allen said.
While the second floor has already been updated for the program, with two bedrooms and a new kitchen, the first floor is being restored to reflect different historical periods.
Light switches are hidden in a closet. There'll be an 1880s-era kitchen, a 1930s-era living room with reproduced artifacts (a couch you can sit on, for instance) and original lighthouse artifacts from the state historical museum, protected behind Plexiglas.
Renovators scraped off 18-20 layers to paint to find original wall colors, like blue-gray, yellow-beige and salmon.
Allen predicts the keeper program will be popular, even if participants have to pay to live and work there. He's sent out 30 applications since May 21.
"I think it won't be long before someone's staying in there," he said.
And don't forget. Obey the signs posted on the way up the spiral staircase: Don't touch the lens, which magnifies the light in the tower.
The glass treasure, now fitted with three halogen bulbs, shines light for up to 16 miles and is still used by boaters for navigation.
"We're one of only nine lighthouses left (of 122 in Michigan) that have their original Fresnel lens," Allen said.[/b]
