ARROWSIC – The owner of a lighthouse is trying to sell it again, four years after he outraged residents and lighthouse enthusiasts by putting it on the market.

Michael Trenholm of Yarmouth says his failing health leaves him unable to maintain Squirrel Point Light. He is asking $375,000 for the 4.3-acre property, which includes the light tower, a keeper’s house, a barn, a boathouse and an oil house.

Squirrel Point Light was one of four Kennebec River light stations constructed in Arrowsic in the late 1800s to help ships navigate a treacherous stretch of river.

“I’ve tried to do nothing but good for that place,” said Trenholm, a 75-year-old diabetic who suffered a series of strokes two years ago. “My health is such that my dreams just didn’t materialize. That’s all there is to it.”

In the mid-1990s, through an act of Congress, the ownership of Squirrel Point Light was transferred at no charge from the Coast Guard to Trenholm’s nonprofit corporation, Squirrel Point Associates.

Around the same time, Congress authorized the Maine Lights Program, which resulted in the 1996 transfer of ownership of 33 lighthouses from the Coast Guard in 1996 to nonprofit organizations that pledged to maintain them for public use.

Trenholm’s attempt to sell the lighthouse for $500,000 in 1998 prompted criticism that he should not profit from the sale of something he received for free.

A deal with Chewonki Foundation fell though in 1999 because officials at the Wiscasset-based environmental education organization were unwilling to meet Trenholm’s asking price of $150,000.

Trenholm says he is retired and needs the money. His latest effort to sell the lighthouse has triggered a review by the Coast Guard.

“He can’t sell it without the Coast Guard’s approval,” said Dean Jones, a spokesman for the First Coast Guard District in Boston. “The agreement says it must be used for educational purposes. Selling it for profit was not the intention.”

According to a copy of the original deed produced by the office of U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, the property reverts to federal ownership once it ceases to be used as a nonprofit center for the preservation of maritime history.

A spokesman for CHR Realty said his company stopped marketing the property to sort through the questions surrounding the property.

Residents are alarmed that one of the town’s landmarks could be sold, according to Michael Kreindler, president of The Range Light Keepers – another of Arrowsic’s light stations.

Trenholm, meanwhile, wishes the town was more helpful.

He said townspeople have never offered to help him fix up the property and that he’s received tax bills amounting to $3,600.

The lawns on the property are overgrown with weeds and brush. Vinyl siding on the keeper’s house is peeling, decks have collapsed and sidewalks have cracked.

“The money I’m trying to get out of it is the money and effort I’ve put into it,” Trenholm said. “I’m not profiting. I’m just about coming out of this even. The sale price is probably too cheap. Where can you find four acres of property on the Maine coast for $375,000? That land is worth a million dollars.”