This Lighthouse-Turned-Artist Residency Blends Style and Sustainability

When was the last time you heard about a “gorgeous” hazmat situation? Yet that’s exactly the word master builder and installation artist Randy Polumbo used to describe the dilapidated lighthouse in Orient Point, New York, he purchased off a government website.

“It had peeling lead paint, cauliflowers coming out of the plaster, rust, mold, mildew, and a few dead birds and some bird crap, but it definitely was beautiful in that kind of decayed, weird way,” he says.

Let’s back up a bit. Polumbo has never been into the easy or the obvious, according to CURBED (where we first spotted this story). And he wasn’t exactly in the market for a lighthouse. It was on the hunt for a decommissioned fuel tank that he happened upon the large cylindrical item. Its price tag: $5,000.

Polumbo even paid a sizable sum to get on the bid list. But one glance at the actual 1899 landmark confirmed what he suspected.

This was a prize that needed to be saved.

Again, some explanation. There is only one way to reach the lighthouse—via fishing boat from Orient, a 6.1-square-mile hamlet located in Suffolk County. The approach is perilous. There’s no proper mooring—just a metal ladder.

“I liked that it was doomed, and I felt that I could breathe new life into it, partly with other artists and creatives,” says Polumbo.

“It had this incredible energy.”

It’s not the first time the Joshua Tree/New York City-based artist has initiated a major, albeit unconventional, transformation. His office is in a vintage Dodge Travco camper that is hoisted in the air inside his 4,000-square-foot Gowanus studio.

His artwork has been shown nationally and internationally across metropoles and natural landscapes such as deserts, ruins, and caves. Polumbo is also a LEED accredited master builder. For the Orient Point Lighthouse project, his handiwork goes far beyond salvaging the structure.

What Polumbo created is an uber-stylish, eco-minded art installation complete with solar system and composting toilet.

“Cleaning it up wasn’t really the hard part,” he says. “It took a lot of time figuring out the solar; I did different solar systems. I had two wind turbines that perished because the elements are so harsh — they literally blew apart. The one now is supposed to be a little more impervious.”

Since opening the lighthouse to visiting artists, Polumbo has had four takers including NYC fine artist Erin Curry. She stayed for two weeks.

Her only outing was a fishing trip. “I caught two striped bass at once on one line.” She also saw a pair of Beluga whales.

“It was an honor to be the first artist-in-resident at the world’s first green, solar-powered Lighthouse Artist Residency!!!,” Currier wrote on her Instagram.

“My friend Artist, Master Builder, & Visionary, @randypolumbo, gripped by a higher poetic madness, transformed it into a work of art & a sustainable & inspiring work space for artists.”

Randy Polumbo is a visual artist whose practice intervenes in perceptual, ecological, and propagational systems. Informed by his wide-ranging study of horticulture, engineering, and regenerative design, his projects use recycled, repurposed, as well as living materials to enact alchemical, spatial, and social transformation.