Lighthouse chapel a tribute to love Tremont man to marry couples at popular coastal landmark

TREMONT – Irving Silverman leans over the balcony of his private lighthouse, a weatherworn tower built for him years ago as a gift from his late wife. He watches fishing boats cut through the water, listens to gulls cry from the rocks and breathes in the salty morning air of Bass Harbor. It’s like a postcard come to life.

Silverman has been spending summers in this spot for more than a decade. Most of those seasons, he came with Nancy Silverman, his wife for 43 years. These days, he comes alone – to read, rest and remember time spent with his loving spouse.

Now, the 84-year-old who still wears a thick gold wedding band on his left ring finger wants to help other couples express their love for one another. He is offering the use of his lighthouse as a wedding chapel, a romantic seaside spot for people who love each other as much as he loved Nancy.

“It will be a site they will remember for the rest of their lives,” he said. “You can’t get married in this place unless you are very much in love.”

Newly appointed as a notary public, Silverman is ambitious about his endeavor; he hopes to perform 25 ceremonies before the end of October, when he returns to Tucson, Ariz., for the winter months.

“I believe in the meaningfulness of marriage,” he said. “The idea of the wedding chapel is an extension of what my life is about right now. I’ve dedicated my entire life to giving of myself and giving love to everyone around me.”

He anticipates marrying couples who want small ceremonies or wish to renew their wedding vows in a setting rich with the things that make the area unique. He is also willing to perform ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples. He plans to charge a modest fee, somewhere between $125 and $200.

The lighthouse has become a local landmark in Bernard, a fishing village in the town of Tremont on Mount Desert Island. In 1992, Nancy Silverman hoped to buy her husband a boat. But because he is legally blind, it would have been too dangerous for him to maneuver. Instead, she hired a nephew to design and build the lighthouse on Steamboat Wharf Road, across the street from their summer home.

The octagonal structure, which extends 43 feet over the water, was built upon a 110-year-old wharf where lobstermen still store their traps. Silverman calls it “Family Lighthouse” in honor of the Harding family, previous owners of the property.

While it is not an official lighthouse maintained by the Coast Guard, it attracts as much attention as any other beacon along Maine’s extensive coastline. By Silverman’s own research, it has been photographed thousands of times and featured in at least 10 calendars. It was also part of the scenery in the 1999 movie “The Cider House Rules.”

“During the day, there are 20 to 30 people who photograph this wharf,” he said. Silverman first thought of hosting weddings in his lighthouse two years ago when a friend from New York asked to use the location to propose to his girlfriend. The couple traveled to Maine for a three-day trip. On the third day, during an evening in the lantern room, he asked her to marry him.

“He said, ‘I love you very much and I want to marry you,'” Silverman recalled. “She was so excited about this that she threw her arms around him.”

Jackie Hayward, a caregiver from Eastbrook, plans to exchange wedding vows with Fred Oldfield, a retired chemical engineer whom she met at line-dancing classes, in the lighthouse on Oct. 1. The couple has invited about a half dozen friends to attend or participate in the service.

“We just wanted a little quiet ceremony,” she said.

Hayward, 50, loves lighthouses. She grew up in Roque Bluffs, a small coastal town where she could hear the long, low moan of the foghorn from Libby Island Light. She has been a caregiver for the Silvermans, first Nancy and now Irving. Besides officiating at her ceremony, Silverman will also give her away, she said. Her own parents are deceased.

Hayward said Silverman’s interest in performing wedding services is a tribute to his late wife. “He loved Nancy so much,” she said. “They were such a great couple. This is for him and his loss and his grieving process. And he likes being involved in people’s lives. It makes him alive.”

Nancy Silverman died in April 2002, a decade after she had the lighthouse built. Every day, usually around 6 p.m., her husband walks past the front steps of the house they once shared, across the quiet street and up the stairs to the lighthouse’s lantern room. He sips a glass of wine, reads or simply takes in the view.

As for officiating at weddings, Silverman said he wishes his late wife could be there to share the new venture.

“She will ever be in my mind,” he said.