Stepping back in time with the lighthouse keeper on Goat Island
KENNEBUNKPORT — Just beyond the Cape Porpoise Pier, where lobster boats idle in the harbor and seals surface between mooring buoys, Goat Island seems to slow time, Nick Lewia said.
A five-minute dinghy ride from shore brings visitors to the small, solar-powered island, where the keeper’s quarters, oil house and bunkhouse cluster along a rocky shoreline. At the center stands Goat Island Lighthouse.
“The crown jewel of the island is the lighthouse,” said Tom Bradbury, executive director of the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust. “It’s the focal point of the harbor, and it has a sacred place in the hearts of the fishing community.”
Lewia, 41, spent his childhood exploring Goat Island with the sons of its longtime keepers. Now, he lives there as the head keeper from May to November with his wife Amy, 12-year-old son Brandon and their hound-shepherd mix Mavis.
His family joined an apprentice program in 2020, gradually taking on longer stays until the former caretakers retired in 2024. Last year, Lewia and his family officially took watch over the lighthouse, which local seafarers still rely on for safe passage into the harbor.
The Lewias joined a lineage that traces back to the last chapter of traditional lighthouse keeping in Maine, according to Bob Trapani, executive director of the American Lighthouse Foundation. Goat Island became the state’s final lighthouse to be automated in 1990, Trapani said.
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The lighthouse is one of three visited by the Portland Press Herald to learn more about the people who steward these iconic Maine landmarks, including two women from Nashville who care for Seguin Island Light Station and York High School teacher Matt Rosenberg, who tends Nubble Light.
On Goat Island, for all the hours spent on upkeep and repairs, Lewia said, it is also like living at Disneyland.
Nights are spent woodworking, painting watercolors or practicing rope braiding, he said, and sunsets have become the backdrop for important family conversations. Days become measured by tides rather than clocks, and the rhythms of the mainland fade beneath the sound of the foghorn and crashing surf.
“The second your boat touches the dock on our island,” Lewia said, “you get a wave that puts you in a different place, a different time.”
Nick Lewia walks along the rocky shore of Goat Island in June. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
‘STEPPING BACK IN TIME’
Lewia wakes up to the sound of lobster boats humming through the harbor — a steady drone that he said makes it difficult to climb out of bed.
Once he’s up, Lewia lets the island dictate his priorities. “This is what’s bothering me today, so I’m going to fix it” is his motto.
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The family starts each May, then rotates with apprentice families through the summer, returning full-time from mid-August until November.
Daily chores include mowing, clearing poison ivy, repainting weathered buildings, fielding fog signal requests from boaters and greeting island goers. Lewia spoke fondly of the eclectic visitor log: overseas tourists, families returning for annual reunions and a jittery young man with an engagement ring in his pocket.
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The lighthouse is managed by the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust, which first leased it from the U.S. Coast Guard in 1992, Bradbury said. The trust took ownership in 1998 through the Maine Lights Program.
Lewia said his upbringing and careers in irrigation and marine operations have made him a creative problem-solver — a skill he said is crucial when something breaks miles from the nearest hardware store or if there is someone in need nearby. He has helped with firefighter transport and search-and-rescue efforts for missing lobstermen, and those stranded by high tide.
“Just surviving out there is a whole project and a whole set of tasks,” Lewia said. “Then on top of that comes the real, big work.”
Nick Lewia climbs down from the fog bell tower on Goat Island in June. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
He recently completed a stone surround at the tower’s base to make it safely accessible, is repairing the dock damaged during the January 2024 storms and plans to restore the island’s boat shed next spring. He has also planted 2,200 plugs of sea grass to stabilize the shoreline against erosion and is exploring a pilot program that would use goats to clear poison ivy.
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Lewia said his vision is to “thoughtfully modernize” the island through necessary improvements that honor its historical integrity.
“I’m trying to keep the island from disappearing,” Lewia said. “I do as much as I can by hand. The quiet, careful preservation feels right.”
Bradbury said that philosophy mirrors the trust’s stewardship of the island. A 2011 restoration returned much of the light station to its 1950s appearance, rebuilding the storm-torn walkway, fog bell tower and coal shed. Even a 1950s icebox hums in the keeper’s kitchen.
“You feel different on the island than you do on the mainland,” Bradbury said. “You’re part of something special. It’s stepping back in time.”
Nick Lewia walks down the steps inside of the lighthouse on Goat Island. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
‘ITS OWN LIVING SOUL’
As someone who’s always chasing the next project, Lewia said Goat Island has taught him to slow down, look out at the water and just be.
He said the stewardship has shaped his son’s life, too. A childhood spent tending the land and leading impromptu tours has helped nurture Brandon into a confident, vibrant kid who sprints down the dock to help strangers ashore, his dad said.
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“It’s a .0001% opportunity,” Lewia said. “For him to grow up in this environment has been incredible, and he’s grown so much because of it.
Lewia said he and his family spend most of their time on the island during keeping season, only leaving for the night when there is an early morning mainland obligation. In the winter, they retreat to their home in Kennebunkport.
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Leaving the island often feels like an interruption rather than an escape, Lewia said.
“It’s really easy for me to self-isolate,” he said. “It’s easy to get stuck out here and go days before realizing I haven’t touched land.”
After dinner most nights, the family scours the island for trash and treasure. Their walks have uncovered centuries-old ballast stones and Civil War-era whiskey bottles, now displayed alongside historic photographs in the covered walkway between the keeper’s house and light tower.
Nick Lewia points out historic items in the passageway between the lighthouse and the keeper’s quarters on Goat Island. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
After so much time spent there, Lewia has grown accustomed to the island’s strange machinations. He recalled returning to retrieve a forgotten screwdriver, only to find a hammer in its place, or kayakers who stumble upon the island have told him they felt inexplicably compelled to paddle closer.
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“It’s like the island has its own living soul that just kind of draws people in,” Lewia said.
He hopes to spend the rest of his life caring for it, an undertaking he said would be impossible without local support.
“We’ve built up an amazing volunteer network,” he said. “Local people, businesses from around Maine and organizations have set days they’ve been coming for years.”
He described an annual “Take Back Day” that returns salvaged fishing gear from the island to local lobstermen, and a woman who recently donated decades worth of Goat Island paintings done by her mother.
The island means a lot to people in Cape Porpoise, Lewia said.
As his dinghy pulled away from the shore one day in late June, Lewia listened to waves against granite and gulls overhead. He said that he would be up again the next day with the first lobster boats rounding the harbor, ready to do it all again.
A lobster boat motors into Cape Porpoise harbor in June with Goat Island in the background. (Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer)
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Tagged: lighthouse, maine preservation, Maine tourism
Chloe Liversidge, from Los Angeles, is a rising senior at Colgate University, where she will serve next year as editor in chief of Maroon-News. She is a general assignment intern for the Press Herald. More by Chloe Liversidge
