A woman who lived on a tiny private island in the San Francisco Bay for a year rent-free has revealed what it was like to reside in near isolation, even enduring two months when she was left without power.
Desiree Heveroh moved into the East Brother Light Station — one of the oldest continuously operating lighthouses in the US — in 2020.
There, she took on the role of lighthouse caretaker during the COVID-19 pandemic, managing the station’s daily operations entirely on her own. She even took care of the island’s waste disposal under the tutelage of Jared Ward, an experienced Bay Area boat captain.
Ward also taught her how to operate the station’s boat on open water, as well as how to complete docking and landing.
On a tiny, rocky island where the San Francisco and San Pablo bays meet, East Brother Light Station was built in 1873. Its lighthouse and fog signal were built to serve as critical aids for ships navigating the choppy straits.
For nearly a century, keepers maintained the light station manually. But in the late 1960s, the US Coast Guard decided to automate the station and announced plans to demolish the lighthouse. The local community was outraged and eventually managed to save the historic landmark.
In 1971, the station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in the late ’70s, a nonprofit group was formed to restore its buildings following a decade of neglect. A bed-and-breakfast on the island has become a destination for tourists, adventure seekers, and maritime history buffs.
In an interview on the YouTube channel World of Nuance, Heveroh explained that she was first introduced to the island when she happened to spot a house on the plot while driving with her daughter many years ago.
“I was driving back from San Rafael to Richmond. My daughter was very young, under 10 at the time, and she said, ‘There’s a house out there.’ And I looked, and yeah, there was one out on the water on an island,” Heveroh recalled.
She spent the next several years researching the property and figuring out ways to get involved in its maintenance and restoration.
“I saw a section [on its website] where you could sign up to be a volunteer,” she explained. “My first project was removing old grout from around the window frames, taking off the paint, refilling it, and repainting it on the fog signal building on the left side window.
“I worked on it all day because I wanted it to be perfect.”
That first volunteer project began what would ultimately become a decade-long love affair between Heveroh and the lighthouse. She would go on to work part time on the island doing marketing for the location.
“I would attend board meetings to give updates and take suggestions,” she said. “I kept thinking, I’ll learn every facet, I’ll learn every angle of this, and I’ll work my way up toward being innkeeper.”
In 2020, her opportunity arose when the pandemic forced the island’s B&B to shut down, leaving the innkeepers with no source of income—and forcing them to move back to the mainland.
This left the island with no full-time inhabitants to handle the day-to-day maintenance and work required—which is when Heveroh stepped in.
She volunteered to move onto the island and take care of it, despite having no idea how long she would be needed there. Also, the property she was renting at the time had been sold, leaving her with no permanent residence.
In other words, the stars had aligned for her.
Though the opportunity was something of a dream come true for her, Heveroh conceded that she had to weather her fair share of tough times on the island by herself.
Perhaps the most difficult was when the submarine cables that supply power to the light station failed, knocking out the electricity for two months and leaving Heveroh with nothing but a 1930s-era generator to provide any form of warmth and light.
“But he wasn’t always reliable,” she said of the generator. “I learned to replace his starter and could tell by smell or sound if something wasn’t right.”
After the generator leaked diesel fuel across the floor, Heveroh worked for days cleaning the spill, using flour and baking soda to soak up the fuel.
“I had all the time in the world to solve problems out here,” she said.
Keeping food cold was another challenge. Heveroh devised a rotation system, using blocks of ice to keep food frozen while the generator ran, and she grew her own vegetables and herbs.
“Every hour of power was precious,” she said. “It was a constant battle to conserve and maintain.”
During her time on the island, she also tried to raise awareness about the light station, talking to news outlets about trying to keep the historic landmark operational.
After two very long months, power was finally restored to East Brother Light Station on May 28, after volunteers spliced the damaged cable as a temporary solution.
The US Coast Guard, responsible for the cable, is reluctant to replace it due to its $1 million price tag. Solar panels have been proposed as an alternative.
“You get used to life without electricity, but flipping a light switch and having light is miraculous,” Heveroh said.
The light station will hold a special place in her heart, she said. “Every day was different, the sunsets, the wildlife. It was like existing in a bubble filled with miracles.”
During the YouTube video, Heveroh returned to the island for the first time since ending her residency, voicing her joy at seeing it once again filled with visitors.