Description of Historic Place

The wave-swept Dwelling, also known as the Southeast Shoal Lighthouse, on Lake Erie is located six miles offshore from Point Pelee amongst sandbars and near the mouth of the Detroit River. The square, concrete structure stands in 20 feet (6.10 meters) of water on a pyramid-shaped base that slopes down to the sandy sea floor at a 45-degree angle. Large, quarried boulders are visible in the water around the base of the structure. The sturdy tower has a flared platform that supports a walkway. A helicopter-landing pad sits above and to one side of the lantern and parapet. The structure is painted white, with the lantern and accents in red. The designation is confined to the footprint of the building.

Heritage Value

The Dwelling is a Classified Federal Heritage Building because of its historical associations, and its architectural and environmental values.

Historical Value:
The Dwelling is associated with navigational aids on the Great Lakes. Located at the west end of Lake Erie at a strategic location, it is crucial to marine traffic passing to and from the Upper Lakes of Superior, Michigan, and Huron. Like the opening of the Welland Canal, the lightstation was integral to improvements being made in the 20th century to the Great Lakes trade route. In July 1950, an explosion and fire during a refuelling operation killed the keeper W.M. Moore and a Coast Guard employee. W.M. Moore had been the keeper since the lightstation’s opening in 1927.

Architectural Value:
The Dwelling is one of the earliest examples of a ‘wave-swept’ lighthouse whose character resides primarily in the excellence of its function-driven design. Notable for its caisson-type foundation on timber piles, it is a compact lightstation that combines the functions of lighttower, upper level dwelling, and lower level boathouse, fog alarm and fuel stores. The hostile environment required a high level of scientific and technical innovation. Excellent functional design is evidenced in the 45-degree angle to the vertical of the substructure, which, along with the placement of the structure at a diagonal to the prevailing winds, minimized wave and ice pressure. Excellent craftsmanship is evidenced in the concrete work.

Environmental Value:
The Dwelling maintains an unchanged relationship to its site and reinforces the maritime character of the Southeast Shoal. The Lighthouse is well known to the shipping community and is a conspicuous regional landmark.

Sources: Joan Mattie, Combined Lighthouse, Lightkeeper’s Dwelling, Boathouse Southeast Shoal Lightstation, Ontario, Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office, Report 88-108; Southeast Shoal Lightstation, Lake Erie, Point Pelee, Ontario, Heritage Character Statement 88-108.

Character-Defining Elements

The following character-defining elements of the Dwelling should be respected.

Its excellent functional design and craftsmanship, for example: the building’s form and geometric massing consisting of a square structure on a pyramidal base that slopes down to the sea floor at a 45-degree angle; the cast concrete construction; the square tower’s flared platform supporting a walkway surrounded by a metal railing; the Radio room on the roof, the parapet and the lantern over which is an offset helicopter-landing pad; the placement of windows and doors; the interior stairways, configuration and fittings; the white painted exterior with red accents.

The manner in which the Dwelling maintains an unchanged relationship to its site, reinforces the maritime setting on Southeast Shoal, and is a prominent landmark as evidenced by: its unchanged relationship to its site in open water on a submerged sandy shoal; the structure’s form and materials, which complement its dramatic maritime setting on Lake Erie; the Lighthouse’s high visibility and specialized role which make it a familiar regional landmark to the commercial shipping community and to visitors looking from the mainland shore of Point Pelee 9.6 kilometres (six miles) to the northeast.

Heritage Character Statement

Disclaimer - The heritage character statement was developed by FHBRO to explain the reasons for the designation of a federal heritage building and what it is about the building that makes it significant (the heritage character). It is a key reference document for anyone involved in planning interventions to federal heritage buildings and is used by FHBRO in their review of interventions.

The Southeast Shoal Lightstation was constructed in 1927 to designs prepared within the Department of the Marine by Mr. Longtin and erected on site under supervising engineer H.E. Poland. The lightstation is the property of Transport Canada, Canadian Coast Guard. See FHBRO Building Report 88-108.

Reason for Designation
The lightstation was designated Classified by virtue of its intrinsic historic importance, its significance in engineering history and its environmental values.

Southeast Shoal is one of the earliest Canadian examples of a "wave-swept" lighthouse; it employs an innovative caisson-type foundation.

Its construction acknowledged the importance of the Point Pelee location, abreast all marine traffic routes passing to and from the Upper Lakes of Superior, Michigan, and Huron; like the Welland Canal, it was an integral part of major improvements being made in the early twentieth-century to the Great Lakes trade route.

Its environmental significance is considerable, given its dominating position above its shoal, little changed since construction and the familiarity of its ungainly but functional silhouette to almost all passing water traffic.

Character Defining Elements
The character of the lightstation resides primarily in the excellence of its engineering design. That character reflects its extremely practical approach to the task of accommodating required site activities in an omnibus structure. The original compact disposition of lower-level boathouse, fog alarm and fuel stores; upper level dwelling; and roof deck with lantern and parapet (for safety's sake), is architecturally undistinguished, conveying a strictly functional and business-like character. The multi-partite nature of the original structure has been reinforced with the subsequent addition of a radio room to the building's roof in 1939, and in 1973, the addition of a heliport.

More fundamentally, its engineering importance lies in the innovative and technically sophisticated approach developed to stabilize the foundations in extremely demanding conditions. The uniqueness of this foundation system lies in the use of timber piles to reinforce the supporting caissons.

Every effort in subsequent management of the station should be made to understand, respect and maintain the integrity of the original engineering foundation system. Also, in the event of new developments in lighting, an effort should be made to retain as much of the lantern and apparatus as possible, since this station provides an early example of electrification in a Canadian lighthouse.

The lightstation, set above its reinforced concrete caisson and surrounded by rip-rap, is isolated within its marine environment. Efforts should be made to preserve the integrity of its site, and the familiarity of its silhouette to passing mariners by maintaining its free-standing and isolated state.