Written and photographed by Will Yurman
Mark Rhoads showed up Sunday, a little before 4 p.m., one of about a dozen volunteers ready to help greet guests at the annual Victorian Christmas Open House at Heceta Head.
It was his first time volunteering at the annual event and Rhoads was dressed for the occasion. Red pants. Red jacket. White beard. His wife, Britta Penca, convinced him to help out. The couple moved to Florence about a year ago after 20 years in Arizona. Time to escape the heat, they said. Before Arizona, they owned a Christmas tree farm in Iowa.
Rhoads spent most of the evening seated next to the Christmas tree in the 19th-century house that is now a bed and breakfast. A red hat, a wide black belt and a small notebook labeled “Santa Notes” completed his outfit. It was Mark Rhoads’ first time as Santa Claus. And Llewyn Newberry was the first child to talk to this first-time Santa.
Llewyn, 6 1/2, came from Eugene with his dad to see the home built for the assistant lighthouse keepers. He saw the lighthouse and the darkening coastal sky. And there were cookies, of course—and hot chocolate.
He asked Santa for a robotic snake.
This is the 29th year of the annual Christmas celebration. It runs the second and third weekend of December. This year’s final weekend is December 20 to 21st, from 4 to 7 p.m. each evening. The event is free, though donations are accepted. Parking is $10.
Michelle Korgan has run the Heceta Lighthouse Bed & Breakfast for 27 years, taking over for her parents, who became the first innkeepers when the U.S. Forest Service leased the keepers’ house. The Korgans were selected from 500 couples to run the bed and breakfast in 1996, Korgan said. She came to help after college and never left. “I just fell in love with what they were doing and helping them with running the bed and breakfast and the restoration and doing events, and I just had a calling for it,” she said.
The Korgans have held the Christmas celebration every year since 1996. But a framed article from the January 1, 1920, Eugene Register-Guard sitting on the mantle of one of the fireplaces makes it clear that Santa paid a visit to Heceta long before the Korgans. The article describes a December 24, 1919, gathering at the log schoolhouse at Heceta.
“Santa appeared after nearly all were assembled. He carried a cane and a pack heavily laden with goodies for every one present and also those who could not come. No one was overlooked by the good old man.”
~ January 1, 1920 Eugene Register Guard
The modern event has all the trimmings, the tree, live music, and Santa, of course. A free shuttle brings visitors who don’t want to walk the 1/2 mile trail to the house. From there, it’s a short walk to the lighthouse itself.
The house, built for the assistant lighthouse keepers, is wrapped in Christmas lights. It was originally used by the first and second assistant lightkeepers. The head keeper’s house was torn down in 1940, after the lighthouse was electrified in 1934, eliminating the need for multiple keepers.
The lighthouse, first lit in 1894, was fully automated in 1963, and the last lighthouse keeper, Oswald Allik, retired the same day, according to the Oregon Encyclopedia.
But the lighthouse continues to run, and its first order Fresnel lens continues to guard the coast. It flashes once every ten seconds. Every lighthouse on the West Coast has its own signal. The ten-second pattern lets a ship’s captain know they are near Heceta Head.
And there is the view. Waves crash on the beach below, and the ocean stretches to the horizon. At 4 p.m., the sky is bright, and the lights wrapped around the house barely glow. By 6 p.m., the house is its own beacon, visible from Route 101, and the beam of light from the lighthouse stretches across the sky, as it has for 131 years.
Describing the feel of being there to someone who has never been is like trying to describe the Himalayan Mountains, Korgan said. “Standing up at the tower and looking up, it’s like a carousel of light. And you don’t know if it’s you that’s moving, or the beams are moving,” she said.
“There aren’t words really to describe how you feel when you’re out on the headland and on the edge of the universe, and up there at night with the light going around.”
