Our Lighthouse Keeper

Since 2008, Goose Rock Lighthouse has been hosting guests for it's annual Lighthouse Day Open House, as well as overnight stays as our "Thank you!" to donors. These visits could never happen without the commitment and dedication of our summer Lighthouse Keeper, the people who work volunteer or work as interns for a small stipend, so that our supporters can experience the world of a lighthouse keeper, too.

In 2009, Elsie Parrot and her family from Gorham, Maine, were sailing their sloop by Goose Rock when she noticed chairs and the grill on the outside deck. She was convinced that people were staying there--and her parents discovered the Beacon website and found out she was right! The Parrot family enjoyed their first stay at Goose Rock Light that year, and two years later Elsie returned with friends to celebrate her birthday. The next year, she traveled to Connecticut to visit Beacon's Penfield Reef Light and interview Beacon's president for a school project on in the importance of lighthouse preservation. In her junior year of high school, Elsie contacted Beacon to apply for an internship, and she was so competent in her management of her favorite lighthouse that Beacon made her its full-time Lighthouse Keeper in 2016, with her father Steve serving as Assistant Keeper.

Elsie returns at Head Keeper in 2017! She graduates from high school this Spring, and in late June will start accommodating guests again. In late August she heads off to college to study Historical Preservation and Architectural History. In her free time Elsie enjoys reading, traveling with her parents, and making raspberry ice cream from scratch.

Beacon is thrilled to have a lighthouse keeper-- who first visited Goose Rock Light when she was only 10 years old--like Elsie Parrot.