Watch Hill Light

Its a little hard to find, but totally worth it. Take the road that says «no trespassing» and follow it til the end. At the end of all the multimillion dollar homes is an amazing tiny little lighthouse with perfect views. Totally Rhode Island at its best!

A place
to see
the sea
Watch Hill is one of the very oldest lighthouse locations in the country. The first tower was built back around 1745 or so and the first real lighthouse in 1807. The area was considered so dangerous and a lighthouse so important that President Thomas Jefferson himself petitioned for it.
The present tower is made of huge blocks of granite and was constructed in 1856. It’s about 45 feet tall and originally had a 4^th order Fresnel Lens. There is a cool little museum on the grounds that is unfortunately only open a couple of days of the week and only in summer.
The area is an active Coast Guard Live Saving Station so you can’t go right up to the light but you can get close enough to get a good view. Actually great views can be seen in all directions, Fisher’s Island, Napatree and even the south fork of Long Island can be seen on clear days.
This area may look beautiful on a nice day but has been the site of some horrible shipwrecks. In 1907 the Paddle Steamer Larchmont collided with the Schooner Harry Knowlton in a nasty blizzard and became the worse maritime disaster in Rhode Island’s history.
143 people perished in the accident with only 19 surviving. Most actually survived the accident but froze in the lifeboats during the raging blizzard. The two captains happen to survive and of course everyone blamed everyone else.
There is no parking except for handicapped folks at the lighthouse so you have to park and walk for about ten minutes to get to the grounds. No problem because the area is lovely and there is something great to see in every direction.
The light is now automated but it is still doing it’s job guiding ships around the point. The area is lovely, serene and peaceful on most days but the sea and sky can still become very angry, very quickly. This lighthouse is a great place to appreciate the beauty, power and wisdom of the sea.

very pretty lighthouse. You can see it well from Napatree point

As the previous reviewer mentioned, Watch Hill Light is easy to miss. Unless you know exactly where to turn in to find it, it can be very hard to find. It is down a long access road, and the entrance to that road is marked as Private Property. I think it has scary signs posted to try and keep most of the general public out. However don’t let the signs scare you. Its perfectly ok to take your car down the access road, just be careful doing so because its a one lane road with many blind turns. The road is really just a very long drive way for a bunch of multi million dollar homes that overlook Watch Hill.
Once you get to the bottom of the access road, the light house and the Coast Guard Property sign lay out in front of you along a beautiful peninsula surrounded by the ocean on all 3 slides. The view is breathtakingly gorgeous. On each side of the peninsula are rocks and the ocean. Allot of people come down here to go fishing, diving, or to just enjoy the view.
I am fortunate enough to be from Westerly and had a friend of a friend who was able to get us our own private tour of the light house. The inside is much smaller than one would think, but the hearing the history of the light was quite fascinating.
If you ever find yourself in South County, this lighthouse and the beautiful piece of land it sits on is a ‘must see”. Its serene beauty is one that I know many of us locals take for granted. I have been around the world and back, and when ever I’m in a stressful situation, I close my eye, and picture myself here. I picture myself standing out on the peninsula feeling a slight chill on the wind, gazing out on the Ocean on a warm summery New England day.

The Watch Hill Lighthouse is easy to miss — it’s accessed off a private road, but it’s definitely open to the public. Lighthouse Road allows visitors to walk down the road and it also allows people to drive down who are over the age of 65 or handicapped. After you pass lots of nice homes, you’ll come up to the lighthouse which is pretty big. There is also a museum within the lighthouse according to the Watch Hill Lighthouse Keepers organization (see website). Unfortunately, I went on a day when the museum was closed, but the website has the hours that it’s open — which according to it right now is Tuesdays & Thursdays. Definitely something neat to check out in Watch Hill.