The 360-degree view of the Chesapeake Bay came with an initial price tag of $31,000.

Then there was the matter of buying a boat for the 15-minute ride to the property, the near-constant interruption of impromptu tours, thousands of hours paid in sweat equity, and another $140,000 out of pocket for materials.

"Ship paint is not cheap," says Bob Gonsoulin.

But Gonsoulin and his family did not use the paint on a vessel. In 2005, they bought an historic lighthouse a mile offshore near Newport News, Va., and began to transform it into a family vacation home.

The Newport News Middle Ground Lighthouse is among more than 50 lighthouses either deeded to non-profit agencies, local or state governments or sold to the public at auctions under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000.

BOB GONSOULINThe Newport News Middle Ground Lighthouse is among more than 50 lighthouses either deeded to non-profit agencies, local or state governments or sold to the public at auction.Maintaining 300 or so lighthouses, including many on the Great Lakes, became too expensive for the U.S. Coast Guard, and the pieces of U.S. maritime history were literally crumbling into the water. The 2000 law allows the federal government to transfer ownership – along with preservation and maintenance chores – to parties willing to take on the job. The Coast Guard keeps up several of the lights on surplus lighthouses, but some have been deactivated as GPS and other navigation advances rendered their original purpose a quaint beacon to the past.

"Our nation's maritime history is preserved through this process," says Lee Anne Galanes, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, which oversees the online auctions. "There are a lot of great non-profits out there, and they really have the motivation."

PRESERVATION PRIORITY

Offering a surplus lighthouse to qualified non-profits, including historical and preservation groups, is the first step. State historical agencies typically review the applications, as does the National Park Service. The U.S. Secretary of the Interior recommends the winning applicant. Under this process, the Coast Guard has transferred at no cost about 30 lighthouses to non-profit agencies and local or state government agencies.

For example, the City of Chicago took possession of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse in February and hopes to turn the structure into a regional maritime museum, though it will have to build a dock to provide public access. The 1893 lighthouse is at the end of a breakwater in the rough chop of Lake Michigan.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse in Florida is now a museum, bookstore and theater. The Petit Manan Light is an active wildlife refuge under the control of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Outer Banks Conservationists Inc. is the steward of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in North Carolina, which the agency made into a museum. More than a dozen municipalities in Michigan, which boasts the largest number of lighthouses in the United States, took over their structures along the shores of the Great Lakes.

The public gets a shot at what is left, typically lighthouses or light towers that are offshore and present greater restoration challenges. These are the acquisitions that get noticed, although under the 2000 law, fewer than 20 lighthouses have been sold through online auctions. The GSA has collected $1.5 million from such sales, which includes some that closed in the last six months but haven't been conveyed.

East Charity Shoal Light, in New York, 9.5 miles southwest of Cape Vincent in Lake Ontario, went on the block May 11. No auction closing date has been set. Another dozen lighthouses are posted for applications from non-profits or municipalities in 2009.

NEW RECORD AND REDO

The Duluth Harbor Inner South Breakwater Lighthouse went up for auction last September, and sent Steve Sola on a mission. "When I heard it was for sale there was no way I was not going to buy it," he says.

Sola grew up near the lighthouse, in the Park Point neighborhood of Duluth, a narrow sliver of land that juts into icy Lake Superior. His children represent the fourth generation here; the family owns the South Pier Inn nearby and a restaurant downtown.

He and partner Matt Kampf won the auction with a bid of $31,000 in December. They have a few ideas for the property"”a smaller lighthouse atop a steel tower, rising 68 feet above ground"”but nothing final. "Right now we are using it as a glorified tree house," Sola says.

The opening bid, set by the GSA, was $5,000. The agency also sets minimum bidding increments and indicates a "soft close" for each auction. But if a new bid comes in within 24 hours, the auction keeps rolling.

That's what happened with the Frying Pan Light Tower. The auction opened with a minimum bid of $10,000 on Oct. 20, 2008, and the "close" was February 11. But a bidding war kept the auction open for a few more weeks. Shipwrecks, Inc., a new South Carolina company that planned on using the property as a platform for dive charters and a sportfishing business, posted the winning bid: $515,000. The company also wanted to team up with universities for fisheries and oceanographic research.

But GSA is redoing the auction. Shipwrecks would not post a 10 percent bond before inspecting the property, and the second-place bidder "was not interested in completing the sale at the point so we decided to recompete," says Tiffany Brevard, another GSA spokesperson.

Frying Pan will go back up for sale but the agency hasn't decided how.

"It is a unique place. It is not like other lighthouses, where they are simply a thing of beauty and part of history," says Lee Spence, a marine archeologist credited with finding several Civil War wrecks. The owner of Shipwrecks, he had the winning bid but forfeited his $5,000 deposit. Losing $5,000 was one thing; coughing up $50,000 before stepping foot on the property was another.

"I expect it will be $2 million in repairs," Spence said before the deal fell apart. "But what if it is $5 million?"

Bidders were not allowed on the site because of safety issues. Spence contends that restriction applied to bidders, not the winner. The GSA says otherwise.

"As is, where is" takes on new meaning with this property. The 80-foot tower is a steel oil-drilling platform built in Louisiana and relocated to Frying Pan Shoals in 1966. A hurricane claimed the ladder; the GSA says the existing heliport is not sound. According to auction documents, the 5,000-square-foot structure may have asbestos and lead paint. It is filled with barrels of battery acid, waste oil and kerosene. Kitchen equipment, furniture in five bedrooms, a recreation lounge with sofas, swivel chairs and a pool table have sat untouched for years.

ONE IS NOT ENOUGH

Renovation and restoration almost always cost more than expected, but some people love the challenge. Gary Zaremba, president of Artisan Restoration Group in New York, bought the Lubec Channel Lighthouse in Maine in 2007 with a winning bid of $47,000. He snapped up another in Ohio late last year. Michael Gabriel, a Nevada attorney, has grabbed three.

Bloody Point Bar Lighthouse, a mile offshore in the Chesapeake, was first. "We've done a lot of the cleanup and engineering work, structural analysis, all the preliminary stuff," Gabriel says.

The goal is to restore it for a vacation home, with three bedrooms and two baths, and offer tours for $5 a person to help offset the costs. Gabriel won the auction by bidding $100,000 in 2006 but estimates he's spent another $250,000 so far.

Still, he considers the project a good deal.

"Considering the location, Kent Island is one of the most exclusive areas in the Chesapeake," Gabriel says. "If it were on land, it would be worth $1.5 million."

In 2007, he bought Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse in the Delaware River for $200,000. Last year, he bought Borden Flats Lighthouse, 1,500 feet offshore in the Taunton River, for $55,000. This one is in Massachusetts.

For Gabriel, the lighthouses are not merely investments but a chance to fix mistakes the government made in letting the beacons deteriorate. "It is our heritage," he says. "You can't mutilate them the way the Coast Guard did. If I did that they would take it back. This is just our history. It just offended me."

Zaremba has years of experience with historic restoration and he cautions buyers that such a project is always more complicated than expected. Many lighthouse renovations require Army Corps of Engineer permits; some need state historic commission approval.

Getting contractors to the site can mean ferrying them by boat; forgetting a tool or bringing the wrong screws can't be fixed by a quick trip to the neighborhood hardware store. Gabriel, for example, bought a tugboat to turn into a work platform.

"The big issue is how far you are from a city and getting materials out there," he says.

Zaremba, of the Artisan Restoration Group, is working on the Maine lighthouse, which has 900 square feet plus stunning views of whales, seals and Canadian shoreline that is all national park land. The goal is a self-contained vacation and adventure-travel spot powered by renewable energy and using composting toilets. Just getting on the site is a challenge; tides can be 20 to 30 feet, and the lighthouse is a 10-minute boat ride from the dock.

"The budget is $150,000, but I don't think we'll finish this year," he says.

The Lubec Channel Light is in relatively decent shape. A $700,000 renovation in 1992 stabilized the foundation, with new plates, concrete and 12 piles, according to "New England Lighthouses: A Virtual Guide," a website for lighthouse aficionados. Next, he'll turn his attention to the Ohio lighthouse, which is at the edge of a breakwater, and hopes to restore it in a way that integrates it with the community for economic growth and tourism.

"The fact that I can keep these historically significant structures intact is important to me," Zaremba says.

EXTENDED FAMILY AFFAIR

But the days when folks like Bob Gonsoulin could grab one in the Chesapeake Bay for less than $100,000 are long gone.

"Even in this down market, the properties generate a lot of interest," Galanes says.

Newport News is an active navigation aid; the deal included Coast Guard access to maintain the automated beacon. Built of cast iron in 1891, the structure is a classic conical spark plug; the interior is covered with brick that family members scoured, one at a time. That came after removing years of seagull droppings and fish remains the birds left behind.

Now, the lighthouse can sleep six comfortably; a new 1,000-square foot deck replaced the dilapidated one; the original heart pine floors are refinished. The family used chunky three-inch-thick boards inside the structure to make rustic furniture. The interior has 1,200 square feet on five levels. A generator provides central air and heat; solar panels carry much of the rest of the load. Specialized toilets grind and sterilize the waste before dumping into the sea.

This summer's project is to finish out the bottom level for extra sleeping space. They get a lot of guests.

"It's a blast," Gonsoulin says.