Max Luttgeharm, second from left, talks to neighbors who live along South Shore Harbour about the lighthouse on Beacon Island on Wednesday. He and the group discussed organizing to rebuild the lighthouse, a landmark for many local boaters.
JENNIFER REYNOLDS/The Daily News

The metal frame and center pole is all that remains of the iconic lighthouse at the South Shore Harbour Resort and Marina in League City on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022.
JENNIFER REYNOLDS/The Daily News

The Beacon Island lighthouse is seen from the South Shore Harbour Resort in League City on Jan. 31, 2014.
The Daily News/File photo

The lighthouse on South Shore Harbor is reflected in the glass doors of a boat moored at the South Shore Harbour Marina on Dec. 9, 2017.
JENNIFER REYNOLDS/The Daily News file photo

The lighthouse on South Shore Harbor Lighthouse at sunset Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017.
JENNIFER REYNOLDSThe Daily News file photo

The Daily News
By SARAH GRUNAU The Daily News
March 16, 2023

LEAGUE CITY - South Shore Harbour residents received an answer to inquiries about a lighthouse once towering 120 feet over the entrance to Clear Lake — the icon is gone for good.

More than 30 residents gathered Wednesday afternoon to share memories of the League City landmark and discuss a plan for a new lighthouse.

The effort was led by resident Max Luttgeharm, who said he learned by email Wednesday the lighthouse, owned by American National Insurance Co., wouldn’t return after being taken down last year in anticipation of repair.

American National, through a subsidiary, erected the lighthouse in 1983 when it built the large-scale housing development, hotel, marina and office buildings known as South Shore Harbour on the shores of Clear Lake.

Corrosion ate away at the panel connection points of the structure, and nearly every part was damaged beyond repair, Scott Webb, assistant vice president of real estate for the company, told The Daily News.

The lighthouse was stripped of its remaining panels before the structural beam was removed Feb. 9.

“Unfortunately the decision has been made to take the remaining portion of the lighthouse down and not rebuild,” Wendy Troxlar, community association manager, confirmed in an email to residents.

“We originally took the shell down for safety reasons due to deterioration of the exterior panel connections,” she said. “The center pole was also corroded and would have required significant repair. We worked through last year attempting to find a design that would result in reasonable pricing, however.”

Lighthouse advocates said they were considering packing city council chambers during the March 28 meeting to encourage city support for replacing the lighthouse.

They have at least one ally.

“For the lighthouse, an icon of the city, to be removed and not put back up is really inexcusable,” Councilman Sean Saunders said Thursday. “It has been a League City icon for many years.”

He would consider supporting the effort for a new lighthouse if the costs weren’t too steep, he said.

Costs aside, the lighthouse has stood as a landmark for South Shore Harbour residents since it was first lit in 1983.

“I think that the lighthouse was a big draw for me when we first moved into our house,” Ronald Swatzyna, who attended the Wednesday rally said.

As a longtime mariner, Swatzyna found comfort in the decorative lighthouse lighting up his bedroom every morning, he said.

Swatzyna started boating in the South Shore Harbour area in 2004 and moved into his waterfront home with his wife in 2018, shortly after Hurricane Harvey. Before moving into his home, he lived in a boat that was docked in the harbor, where he rode out the crashing waves of the hurricane.

The lighthouse, now just a memory, had been a prevalent image in his experiences on South Shore Harbour, he said.

“We don’t have much to leave to the kids, but wouldn’t it be nice to leave the tradition of this lighthouse to them?” he said.

The history of the lighthouse is rich, and former astronaut and one of the first humans on the moon, Admiral Alan B. Shepard, was recounted as a pioneer in the planning of the lighthouse, according to an article in the Texas City Sun.

Before coming to South Shore Harbour as the centerpiece of the community, the lighthouse was on NASA Road 1, and later moved to expand into its most recent form, according to the newspaper.