A few years back, I took a Boston Harbor boat tour with a couple of friends. I've been out in Boston Harbor many times, but what was interesting on this one was learning that someone had purchased Graves Light and was turning the lighthouse into living quarters, and renovating the oil house, attached by that catwalk-y bridge to the main event, and turning it into a guest house.
Like every other loner on the face of the earth, I've harbored many a fantasy of living in a lighthouse. Just not one that didn't really have any real estate around it, and that required climbing up a forty foot ladder to get to the door. That's heart attack territory, as far as I'm concerned. (At least now there's a bridge. When I first saw this property, I believe you got from the main lighthouse to the guest quarters via zipline.)
Still, I thought the restoration of Graves Light was a fun - albeit eccentric - project.
And then I promptly forgot about it.
Turns out that, even though he's now owned Graves for seven years, owner Dave Waller still hasn't finished his renovation. But the reno project has halted, thanks to a dispute that Waller finds himself in with the town of Hull, which is going after Waller for taxes that he doesn't believe he owes.
That's because, when Waller bought the lighthouse from the federal government, he was assured by the Coast Guard that:
...the lighthouse did not belong to any city or town.
That’s why Waller was shocked when, out of the blue, he received a property tax bill from the town of Hull last year.
“I called the assessor’s office,” Waller said. “They just annexed us.”
Since then, he’s been locked in a legal battle with the town to prove that the sea-swept ledge that the 115-year-old lighthouse was built upon is not part of Hull.(Source: Boston Globe)
The parties are now locking horns in Land Court.
I love Hull. For many years, my sister Kath lived in this odd and wonderfully funky little town that looks so very close to Boston, until you try to get there by any means other than by commuter boat. Hull is on a spit of land the swings out into Boston Harbor, and it's a total PITA to get there by car. Kath lived on the far end of the spit, and there were times during the winter when the roadway flooded and they were marooned out there. Still, they had a lovely old house on a hill overlooking the water. What a spot!
But I'm kind of siding with Waller here. When the feds owned the island, Hull had made no claim on it being their land. But now that they think they can extract a few bucks, they're after it.
I'm curious about just what services are providing to Waller that he needs to get taxed on. He's not getting trash pick up. He doesn't get plowed out. He doesn't need a pothole fixed. His kids aren't climbing down that ladder each morning to cross the choppy waters to attend school.
I guess it's conceivable that Waller's family uses Nantasket Beach for the few minutes a day it's not water logged, but what's that worth?
Nantasket is the beach of my childhood, as our family made an annual pilgrimage there for a day each summer to splash in the water, look for a starfish, buy Le Hage's "Oh, so good" salt water taffy, and go on a few rides at Paragon Park. But the beach has eroded over the years, and while I'm exaggerating about the few viable beach minutes a day, there has been been a ton of erosion and at high tide I don't believe there are any sandy spots available. And, besides, the beach isn't run by Hull, but by the state. So there.
But Waller's says his quibble is not with the taxes, or what he would or wouldn't get in return for paying them. He's more peeved by Hull's annexation of his rocky little piece of heaven.
The town maintains that "19th century maps and other documents...show the lighthouse is located in Hull." And that, furthermore, Graves Light can't just be no man's land."
"If it’s not located in Hull, where is it? We say that it’s located in Hull, and if it’s not in Hull, it has to be located in some jurisdiction.”
Might existential question you're asking there, Town of Hull.
In addition to looking for the tax revenue, Hull wants construction permitting and inspection to come under their regulations. Waller has countered that all the work he's done "has been subject to oversight by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Coast Guard, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and other regulatory agencies."
Graves Light, by the way, has a nice little website. These days, it's mostly dedicated to squawking about the Hull "landgrab", although technically it's more of a rock grab. Among other , the website shows a raft of the anti-Hull comments that attached themselves to the Boston Globe article I've cited here. And there's a nifty picture of the lighthouse streaming out the word SHAKEDOWN in large red letters.
The Land Court "has asked both sides to consider the possibility of resolving the issue through mediation, and a status conference is scheduled for June 29."
I'm rooting for Waller. And I'm guessing that Hull will have spent more money going after Graves Light than they'll ever realize from taxes.
Anyway, I've added another cruise on Boston Harbor to the list of things I want to do next summer, or whenever the COVID after time begins...
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