Light station ownership disputed in court case

PORTLAND – A court fight is under way over control of a Kennebec River light station.

The Coast Guard and a group from Arrowsic have gone to U.S. District Court challenging the ownership of the station by a Yarmouth man who was given the property.

The Coast Guard and Citizens for Squirrel Point maintain that Squirrel Point Light Station in Arrowsic and its owner, Leon “Michael” Trenholm of Squirrel Point Associates, violated terms of a deed.

They say ownership should revert to the federal government, which would find a new owner to restore the light station for public use.

Trenholm claims the right to sell.

Ownership of Squirrel Point Light Station was transferred through an act of Congress in the late 1990s to the nonprofit organization and Trenholm, who planned a restoration that would provide public access.

Squirrel Point Light, which was built in 1898, had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. The station includes a light tower, keeper’s quarters, barn, boathouse and an oil house. The 5-acre property is accessible only by boat or on foot.

“You don’t know how difficult it has been to find people to work down there,” said Trenholm, 78.

Trenholm put the lighthouse on the market two years ago for $425,000. Some Arrowsic residents argued he should not be allowed to profit.

In June 2003, Leonard Picotte, a retired Navy admiral, and his wife, Sandra Whiteley, of Suffolk, Va., made an offer that was accepted. Whiteley said she and her husband were interested in using the keeper’s quarters as a summer home and converting an adjacent barn into a museum, but are not actively pursuing the lighthouse because of the court fight.

“I don’t know if we are still interested,” she said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Collins has argued to the court that the terms of the deed required Squirrel Point Associates to use the lighthouse as a non-profit center for the interpretation and preservation of maritime history and that the lighthouse must be preserved in accordance with historic preservation standards set forth by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

“In the end, Squirrel Point Associates did nothing other than sporadic lawn mowing. Squirrel Point Associates never abided by the actual terms of the deed regardless of how noble its intentions were,” the government’s brief states.