
DATE: Sunday, May 25, 1997                  TAG: 9705230311

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 08   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  100 lines

LIGHTHOUSE GIFT SHOPS LURE SHOPPERS, HELP RESTORE STRUCTURES

Got a hankering for things nautical? Do lighthouses make your collectors eye gleam?

If so, the Outer Banks will be your playground.

Not only are there four light towers to visit, walk around and - in some cases - climb, but there are numerous gift shops with the coastal beacons as their centerpieces.

And face it. Coming home from vacation, you need mementos. And lighthouse gifts, from the tacky to the beautiful, are a natural after visiting the Outer Banks.

Lighthouse Gallery and Gifts, 301 Driftwood St. on Gallery Row in Nags Head, offers a variety of items and is a work of care and love by Bruce and Cheryl Roberts, lighthouse advocates who launched the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society.

Both have written books. The latest by Cheryl Roberts, ``Lighthouse Families,'' is being released this summer. It's the story of the people who called lighthouses home - the more than 5,000 U.S. Lighthouse Service keepers and employees.

``These are not people who seek attention or fame for themselves,'' she writes. ``They are quiet people who lived under strict government rules and made family and work their two top priorities.

The book is intended to preserve some history that might otherwise have been lost.

``While the future of light station buildings looks relatively secure,'' Roberts said, ``the memories of the U.S. Lighthouse Service and the families and children who called lighthouse keppers dwellings home are still in jeopardy of being lost forever.''

If the couple's shop appears to have the shape of a lighthouse, that's because it does.

They used plans, found in the National Archives, for the Point Furman (California) Light.

The shop's 1,000 square feet houses lighthouse collectibles, books and toys, and reproductions of such items as foghorns, spinnakers and ship's clocks.

The shop has living quarters upstairs and a tower equipped with an 1864 post light.

Three of the lighthouses also have their own shops.

Bodie and Hatteras lights have shops that are much alike, featuring a standard array of books, pictures, posters, models and such. Their offerings are dwarfed, however, by the Currituck Lighthouse shop which is a joy to explore owning to its wide array of coastal beacon souvenirs.

The only of the Outer Banks' four lighthouses not managed by the National Park Service, Currituck's keepers are always in need of cash to maintain the site and continue with the ongoing restoration efforts that have made it one of the most beautiful lighthouse stops. Thus, a portion of every gift shop sale goes to that effort.

The shop is itself an act of restoration. It's located in the small keepers' dwelling, built in the 1870s.

In 1939, with the end of keepers' duties owing to lighthouse automation, it became a hay storage building. Then even that use ended and the woods claimed the structure, shrouding it so thick with vines that when effort began to save the lighthouse's support buildings, no one even knew it existed.

Today, the shop includes pewter, statues galore, jewelry, magnets, coffee mugs, shirts, quilts, bells, candles, chimes and more. And don't miss the second floor where you'll find a gallery of paintings, photographs and drawings of lighthouses and coastal life.

In addition to lighthouse stuff, there are models, photos, paintings and more about the horses that freely wander north of the road's end in Corolla. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by DREW C. WILSON

The Bodie Island Lighthouse on the North Carolina coast on March 25,

with the Hale-Bopp comet in the early morning sky. Collectors of

lighthouse memorabilia will find the Outer Banks a virtual treasure

trove.

Graphic

FOR FURTHER STUDY

The Outer Banks Lighthouse Society was established in 1994 with a

mission to collect the history of North Carolina Lighthouses. Annual

dues are $15. For information, write: P.O. Box 205, Kill Devil

Hills, N.C. 27948.

Outer Banks Conservationists is continuing the long-term

restoration of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse keepers' houses and