How to Hold Up a Bank

In the first 200 years since it was built, erosion claimed nearly 200 feet of land that used to be east of the lighthouse. In the 1960's the Coast Guard was considering demolishing the lighthouse before nature did, and replacing it with a steel tower.

The resulting uproar caught the attention of a New York textile designer named Giorgina Reid. She had succesfully stopped erosion of her own property on Long Island's north shore using a series of wooden terraces lined with reeds and other local materials, then filled with sand. Native plants soon took over so the bluff below the lighthouse is now overgrown and the terraces are invisible, but are still there holding it all together.

The Coast Guard continues to fortify the base of the bluff with a stone "toe wall" and the the erosion seems to have been abated. Not bad for a clothing designer with no engineering experience! Read more about Giorgina's work here.