Image: The survey cuts the tower open: the spiral staircase that guests saw projected onto the lighthouse itself. Still from the three-dimensional survey. RealitySync by Preference Consulting for Preserving Florida, 2025. View illustration (JPEG, 146 KB)
1825 — present
Cape Florida Lighthouse
Miami-Dade County's oldest standing structure, first lit on 17 December 1825 and recorded in three dimensions two hundred years later, to the day.
Contents
- Overview
- Two hundred years
- The bicentennial night
- The survey
- A permanent record
- The lighthouse in 3D
- Chronology
- Artifacts
Overview
The lighthouse stands at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. It was first lit on 17 December 1825, which makes it the oldest structure still standing in Miami-Dade County, and its work was the Florida Reef: the line of coral that has wrecked ships along this coast for as long as ships have passed. Two centuries of hurricanes, war and fire have not brought it down.
This page is built on an account of the bicentennial evening of 17 December 2025 and on the three-dimensional survey of the tower and the keeper's cottage recorded for it. The survey is what every picture here is taken from, and the film below is a pass through it.
Subject headings: Maritime history, Architecture
Two hundred years
The light was first shown on 17 December 1825. What it marked was the Florida Reef, and what it was for was the ships working the coast, which without it had only the sound of breaking water to warn them.
Image: The tower, first lit on 17 December 1825. Still from the three-dimensional survey. RealitySync by Preference Consulting for Preserving Florida, 2025. View illustration (JPEG, 30 KB)
In the two centuries since, the tower has come through hurricanes, war and fire, and it is still there — one of the most durable and most recognisable landmarks in south Florida.
The bicentennial night
The anniversary was kept on 17 December 2025 at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, organised by the Friends of Cape Florida. The lighthouse and the keeper's cottage were turned into a tribute to the layered past of the place: an immersive theatre piece, live music, and an appearance by Bill Baggs himself — or, at least, by a very convincing lookalike.
Among the guests were descendants of John duBose, the lighthouse's first keeper.
After dark the tower became a screen. Larger-than-life figures of Bill Baggs and reenactments of moments from the history of Cape Florida were projected onto its white shaft, and with them the survey: a point cloud of the interior that assembled itself from the ground up, the spiral staircase lit from within, and views of other landmarks across south Florida. Visitors saw the lighthouse and its grounds as no one had seen them before.
The survey
The survey was made with RealitySync, Preference Consulting's three-dimensional scanning system. It captured the lighthouse and the keeper's cottage in full detail — every angle, every contour, and the spaces a visitor never sees.
Image: The keeper's cottage, opened up by the survey — including the spaces a visitor never sees. Still from the three-dimensional survey. RealitySync by Preference Consulting for Preserving Florida, 2025. View illustration (JPEG, 150 KB)
Preference Consulting was invited to take part by Christina Bracken, president of the Friends of Cape Florida.
A permanent record
The lighthouse now has a permanent visual record. Should a hurricane damage it, or should it simply wear, the survey allows it to be rebuilt faithfully to within a centimetre.
That is the case for digital preservation, and the reason this archive keeps such records: a building described this closely can go on being described long after its fabric has changed.
The lighthouse in 3D
Image: A pass through the three-dimensional survey, from the foot of the tower to the lantern room, with the buildings cut open. RealitySync by Preference Consulting for Preserving Florida, 2025. Watch on YouTube (silent, 1m 47s)
Chronology
- The Cape Florida Lighthouse is lit for the first time and begins its work guiding sailors past the Florida Reef.
- RealitySync, by Preference Consulting, records the lighthouse and the keeper's cottage in three dimensions.
- The Friends of Cape Florida keep the bicentennial at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. The survey is projected onto the tower.
Artifacts
- Three-dimensional survey of the lighthouse and keeper's cottage — video, Preserving Florida, JPEG, 62 KB
Explore further
- 1961 — present — Bay of Pigs Air Memorial
This page was last revised on .