By ROBIN ERB BLADE STAFF WRITER

Imagine a sunset cruise to a quiet restaurant on an intimate island.

The steak there is succulent, and the walleye pan-fried to perfection. From your overnight accommodations, you'll take in a 360-degree lake view accented by moonlight and outlined by a twinkling shorescape.

Waves crash. Gulls wail.

An isolated getaway for the rich and famous?

Nope. It could be just a half-hour boat ride from the Maumee Bay shoreline.

The Toledo Harbor Light, located eight miles out into Lake Erie, turns 100 years old next year. Lighthouse fans, environmentalists, and civic enthusiasts alike are hoping that the centennial will jumpstart their plans to preserve the Romanesque beacon in Maumee Bay - possibly converting it into a restaurant and inn.

"There's something about a lighthouse and a fog horn that circles all night," said Sandy Bihn, who last week was installed as the president of the new Toledo Harbor Light Society. "It's special and romantic and there's a certain amount of emotion that comes with it."

Ms. Bihn, who is also finance director for the city of Oregon, said the group's priority is to preserve the lighthouse, though some members are pursuing the idea specifically of an inn and restaurant. The estimated cost for the renovation project would be $2.5 million.

To that end, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) has helped obtain a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to help provide power for the project.

Solar cells that currently feed the 300-mm lens for the light would be supplemented with wind-generated energy and a geothermal heating and cooling system, said Bob Seyfang, a retired architect and civic activist.

Also in the plan is a proposed breakwall that would surround the island 100 feet out, providing space for a wind turbine generator and safe harbor for boats to dock. A well system is in place for potable water, he said.

The project would promote alternative forms of energy and help generate tourist dollars, Miss Kaptur said.

"Maybe after a day at Cedar Point, you tempt [visitors] to stay a half day longer with a stay overnight there," she said.

Because the lighthouse is so solidly built, it wouldn't take much to return it to its glory days before 1966, when 24-hour keepers maintained its light and fog horn, proponents say.

Indeed, inside the front door, a maintenance log dating back a half-decade remains perfectly dry, despite at least five seasons of rain, snow, and ice battering the brown brick and decorative black steel outside.

"Structurally, they're incredibly sound," Coast Guard Petty Officer Jason Rule said of lighthouses. "They were very meticulous with what they did."

In fact, the three-story Toledo Harbor Light is somewhat an optical illusion. Its size - diminished at a distance by the vastness of the surrounding lake - suddenly towers as one approaches. Above the three floors of living and working quarters, the tower and distinctively cross-hatched cupola stretch farther upward, placing the midpoint of the three-second light beam 72 feet above the surface of the water.

Cast iron still lines the staircase and decorates the exterior, and the brick that has filled in the arched windows over the years easily could be replaced with glass, Mr. Seyfang said.

He and others envision six guest rooms, a kitchen, and dining area, and access to the tower via a lounge or game room. Additionally, the lower portion of the building would be converted to a dormitorylike area for staff.

"We'd keep the entire thing in the early 1900s period," he said. "It's just beautiful."

Still, no one's arguing that the project would be easy.

Getting to the federally owned structure requires a boat, a well-timed jump onto a steel ladder, and a climb above the jagged boulders of the man-made island.

In 1966, the lighthouse went fully automated. Twice a year, U.S. Coast Guardsmen conduct cleaning and maintenance on the lens, solar panels, and backup batteries.

Now, the federal government is trying to get out of real estate and would offer the deed to the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority or another public entity as long as it could retain access to the lighthouse machinery itself to keep it functional, Mr. Seyfang said.

The only tenants at the lighthouse these days are the storied mannequin posed in an upstairs window - the lighthouse phantom to boaters given to fantasy - and eight-legged and winged critters that have encased the structure in webs and bird waste.

Last week, the U.S. Coast Guard's Justin McComb pulled out a Bic and inked his name on the mannequin's blouse - a rite of passage for new officers stationed at the Coast Guard's Toledo station.

Once a man with a penciled-in mustache, the motionless figure since has become a woman with a trailing blond wig.

"I can see coming here," the seaman apprentice said, capping his pen and glancing at the rooms around him. "It's a cool old building.

And it has another fan, Jack Shaffer, a former Coast Guard Engineman, 2nd class, who was stationed at the lighthouse as a keeper in 1954.

Long ago retired from his Coast Guard post, Mr. Shaffer nonetheless remembers that his days of mundane chores - from maintaining generators to cleaning up "June bugs" - were broken up by card games and other camaraderie with the lighthouse mates.

The lighthouse, he said, would be sure to draw more than lighthouse buffs and former Coast Guardsmen, he said. "They show the passing of a bygone era," he said.

**From The Toledo Blade