Shelburne Museum

The Lighthouse, from Colchester Reef on nearby Lake Champlain, served as home and workplace for 11 successive lighthouse keepers and their families. Visitors experience daily 19th-century life on the lake and learn about Lake Champlain history.

The Lighthouse was built in 1871 to mark three reefs between Vermont and New York. Because it had to endure strong lake winds, the structure’s 25-foot-square post-and-beam frame, foundation, roof, and tower are pegged, bolted, and secured with 1½-inch thick iron rods. The Lighthouse has a mansard roof and scrolled window frames typical of the then-fashionable French Second Empire style.

In 1952, the abandoned Lighthouse was dismantled from its site on the lake and re-constructed at the Museum, where it sits near the 220-foot steamboat Ticonderoga.