URBANA — Many people are fans of lighthouses — a throwback to a simpler time, a beacon to ships on the high seas.
Developer Ivan Richardson was one of them and built one in his Beringer Commons subdivision in east Urbana that is a replica of a lighthouse in Cape Hatteras, N.C.
The lighthouse didn’t warn vehicles to shy away from the Beringer Circle pond. It was more for looks than functionality. But it had seen better days. Its condition was run down at best.
That’s where Beringer Commons resident Dave Price stepped in. Owner/operator of his own painting business, the handyman can add “restored old lighthouse” to his résumé.
Homeowners association board member Vicki Trimble said Price volunteered “a ton of his time, talent, equipment and ability” to renovate the lighthouse.
“It was a fun kind of project, something I’d never done before,” Price said.
That makes sense. Price generally sticks to working in Illinois and Indiana. There aren’t too many lighthouses in this neck of the woods.
Price said he volunteered to undertake the project when he was talking to some residents of the subdivision who were discussing the poor condition of the lighthouse.
“I didn’t know really what I was getting into,” the affable Price said. “I thought, ‘Oh man, what did I do?’”
Price estimated he put 60 hours into the project — sometimes working two and three hours at a time in between working at his real job.
Much of the work on the 25-foot lighthouse went into offsetting the damage caused by moisture. Price said the tower is made of coated foam and shaped like a tomato cage with rebar anchored into the bottom of concrete.
Price cleaned out the bad areas, got rid of loose material, patched the areas and painted the structure.
He added roof patching “to rubberize it to keep the moisture out” and painted it with a couple of coats of Sherwin-Williams emerald paint.
He also coated the bottom of the lighthouse with roof coating and roof patch and added about four coats of blue paint.
Price added 50 wooden stars to the structure, replaced rotted corbels with new ones, added new plywood to the top, laminated it and gave it “four or five coats of paint.”
One thing that wasn’t replaced was the tiny windows at the top of the structure. He got rid of them to prevent any leakage.
Price said the original idea was to fix up the lighthouse to get it to last a few more years. He thinks it will last longer than that now.
“I’m pretty pleased with it,” he said.
He is looking into possibly adding a solar light at the top. The lighthouse isn’t equipped with electricity.
Bob Withers, a 17-year resident of Beringer Commons, said he believes the lighthouse was built in the 1980s when the subdivision was first developed.
He said the lighthouse was in bad shape.
“We had to do something with it — either tear it down or put something there,” Withers said.
He said most of the residents are happy with the restoration.
“Some people don’t care one way or another, and some people really liked that lighthouse,” he said. “It looks good now. Hopefully it will hold up.”
Trimble said Price “did an awesome job. Absolutely beautiful.”
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Beringer Commons residents beam at condition of restored lighthouse - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette
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