Point Vicente Lighthouse

Point Vicente Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, United States, north of Los Angeles Harbor, which was built in 1926. It is 67 feet (20 m) tall and stands on a cliff with a height of 130 feet (40 m). It is between Point Loma Lighthouse to the south and Point Conception Lighthouse to the north. The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The lighthouse is owned by the United States federal government and is managed by the United States Coast Guard. Visitors are allowed to access the lighthouse on the second Saturday of every month.

Point Vicente Lighthouse was built in 1926, following years of complaints from shipping about the dangerous waters around the Palos Verdes peninsula. It is situated just north of the entrances to the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbors. The white cylindrical tower is 67 feet (20 m) tall, and the masonry structure is built on the edge of a 130-foot (40 m) cliff. This places the center of the lantern 185 feet (56 m) above the ocean.

The lighthouse had a classical third-order rotating Parisian Fresnel lens with a width of 5 feet (1.5 m), which had been in use in Alaska since its construction in 1886 by Barbier, Benard, et Turenne, the oldest lens making company in the world. The lens is made up of hand-ground prisms held in place by a cast brass frame. When it was active, the 1.1 million candlepower-beam had a nominal (clear weather) visible range of 24 nautical miles (44 km; 28 mi).

In 1934 the Long Beach Radio Station opened in a neighboring building, which was used to monitor for distress signals.

The lighthouse was operated and maintained by the United States Lighthouse Service prior to that Service being merged with the U.S. Coast Guard, which was delegated all aid-to-navigation responsibilities in 1939.

The light source was dimmed to just 25 watts during World War II to avoid aiding the enemy. The lighthouse was manned until 1971 when it was automated by a remote electronic aids-to-navigation monitoring system, and the radio station was closed in 1980. In 2015, the Coast Guard announced its intention to replace the original third order lens with an LED light with a 14 nm range, replacing the existing light and lens. In February 2019 the lens was removed from the light room.

The Coast Guard Light List specifies its light characteristic as being a pair of two white flashes, repeating that pair every 20 seconds. An emergency light of reduced intensity operates if the main light is extinguished. Since it was removed from the lantern room, the lens has been on display at the Point Vicente Interpretive Center.

This lighthouse once incorporated a foghorn to warn ships during times of low visibility. The foghorn was dismantled in the early 2000s.