The first time Desiree Heveroh set foot on East Brother island, she knew she was going to live there, in the way you know things deep within your soul. What she couldn’t have predicted was how, a decade later, it would come about. The East Brother Light Station is the lovingly restored, 147-year-old Victorian lighthouse and inn that crowns the little island between the San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, and when the pandemic struck, someone had to quite literally keep the lights on. “It [felt like] fulfilling my destiny,” she says.
For the past year, Heveroh has served as the Light Station Keeper, working alongside Captain Jerrod Ward to build a unique partnership with the place and with each other. “We’re still very much in the heart of the Bay Area, and its hustle and bustle,” says Ward, who lives and works a full-time job in the city, “but when we’re here, we’re almost in this bubble. It’s like my little snowglobe.”
The Light Station is owned by the U.S. Coast Guard, but maintained by the East Brother Bed & Breakfast, the nonprofit inn that has been operating on the property since 1979. Typically, the innkeeper and a licensed Captain form a team that is responsible for maintaining the grounds and buildings. But when COVID-19 closed the inn to guests, the keepers cleared out—leaving the historic structures unattended in the face of the wind and water erosion that constantly threatens their disrepair.
In response, the nonprofit board created the volunteer keeper position; while Heveroh doesn’t discount the hardship caused by the pandemic, it also opened a once-in-a-lifetime pathway. The Visit Richmond Tourism Bureau where she had been working also closed, sending her a severance check; meanwhile, her building’s owner sold the space and bought out all the tenants. The keeper position offered lodging at the inn in exchange for handling maintenance and upkeep, and the way forward was clear. “Any minute I spend away from this gift, I can never get back, so I was happy to volunteer,” Heveroh says.
Former keeper John Barnett, who served for a record 7.5 years, recommended Ward for the Captain’s position, and on July 1, 2020, he and Heveroh moved onto the island. Ward spent the first few months training Heveroh on things like driving a boat, mechanical maintenance, and raising and lowering the hoist that is required to get boats on and off the island. What both describe as a seamless partnership was put to the test in April 2021, when the cable that provides the island’s sole source of power gave out. Not only did that mean almost no electricity, it also rendered the hoist that allows boats to enter and leave inoperable, but the community came to their rescue.
“Everyone who works on the water is aware of this place, and friends of mine who worked on tugboats, charter fishermen, and everybody in the maritime industry [was] reaching out … in order to fix it,” says Ward. When he was finally able to leave the island and return to his day job, Heveroh remained behind, “living back in time” with only a few hours of power each day provided by a Depression-era generator, but neither doubted her capabilities.
Ward visited regularly and brought supplies, and “I had a whole support group on the mainland,” Heveroh says. One of the board members “drove up to get an antique starter when the generator gave out, and talked me through how to replace it on video chat. The harbormaster had to roll it out on his boat because his engine had given out that day. Everyone on shore was making sure that I was okay.”
Besides, it was hardly the lighthouse’s first crisis. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places to save it from demolition in the late 1960s, when the Coast Guard had intended to automate the station and tear the building down. But public agencies had no funds for upkeep, and the lighthouse fell into disrepair. In response, members of the local community formed the nonprofit to restore the building and return it to public use.
Heveroh has been a board member for the past eight years and a volunteer for 10, starting as a member of the “Wicks”—the volunteer group named for the traditional wick-and-oil method once used to light the lamps—while also helping with marketing. In non-pandemic times, the Wicks spend the second Saturday of each month putting their various skills to use, from cleaning to electrical work, putting millions of dollars’ worth of work into restoring and maintaining the property.
Keeping the Light Station alive is not only important to the community, but a key part of historical preservation. “For the most part, lighthouses that are manned don’t exist anymore; they’re all automated,” Ward says. “[East Brother] is holding onto a traditional piece of history.”
It certainly inspired our brewery’s co-founders; one day while driving across the bridge, they looked left, and after seeing the island, they immediately knew what they wanted to call their business. “I appreciate a local brewery paying homage to the history of the city in their name,” Ward says. When we learned about the power crisis, we knew we had to help, so on May 5, we brought back our Freighter Series beers, donating 20% of sales to the station. Other local food and beverage businesses have joined the cause with fundraising promotions, and the station has set up a GoFundMe campaign; it’s raised over $83,000, but remains short of its $100,000 goal.
The inn expects to reopen to guests soon, but in the meantime, Heveroh and Ward have cherished the opportunity to build a uniquely intimate relationship with the place itself. “There's not going to be many people throughout history who have been out here without seeing guests,” Ward says. “For me,” says Heveroh, “it’s magical. And the world needs magic right now.”
Want to read more about Desiree and the light house? Check out the blog by our friend Dean at The Beerverse.
