Sanibel Lighthouse
— iron legs in the Gulf wind.
Not only on a wall.
Sanibel Lighthouse, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The lighthouse at Point Ybel is a brown iron skeleton, ninety-eight feet high, lit since 1884. It stands at the east end of Sanibel, where the bay turns into the Gulf. Hurricane Ian took one of its four legs in 2022; the Coast Guard rebuilt it. The light has guided the channel into San Carlos Bay for a hundred and forty years. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
The Sanibel Island Light stands at Point Ybel, the easternmost tip of Sanibel, marking the entrance to San Carlos Bay and the channel to Punta Rassa and Fort Myers. The tower is a brown skeletal iron pyramid, ninety-eight feet tall, with the keeper's quarters on stilts beside it. Construction was finished in 1884 by the United States Lighthouse Board. The light was automated in 1949 and the property transferred to the city of Sanibel. The surrounding Lighthouse Beach Park is the busiest shelling stretch on the island.
The lighthouse was one of the first Gulf-coast lights established south of Tampa Bay. It joined the lighthouse network in 1884 under Congressional appropriation. The two keepers lived on the property until automation in 1949 freed them. The tower survived a century of hurricanes, including the unnamed 1910 and 1944 storms, Donna in 1960, and Charley in 2004, before Hurricane Ian in September 2022 wrenched away the southeast leg. The structure was repaired and re-lit by the United States Coast Guard within the following year.
Lighthouse Beach Park sits at the east end of Sanibel where Periwinkle Way ends. The tower itself is closed to the public, with its base fenced for ongoing structural and storm-recovery work, but the beach around it is open daily from sunrise to sunset. A paid hourly lot serves the park. The pier on the bay side draws fishing, the Gulf side draws shellers, and the boardwalk between them passes through native cabbage palms and sea-grape thickets. Restrooms and a small shaded picnic shelter are on site.
