Cleft of the Rock Light

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Cleft of the Rock Light is a privately owned lighthouse on the Pacific coast of Oregon, about 1.8 miles south of Yachats at Cape Perpetua (coordinates 44.290479°N, 124.110773°W). It was built in 1976 by James A. Gibbs, a lighthouse historian who had worked at Tillamook Rock Light and who helped preserve lantern rooms at other lighthouses.

The lighthouse features a 34-foot-tall tower on 110 feet of ground. It uses a fourth-order Fresnel lens and can be seen up to about 16 miles away. The light’s pattern is Alt WR 10 seconds, meaning it alternates white and red every 10 seconds.

Gibbs designed Cleft of the Rock Light to resemble Fiddle Reef Light, which operated in Oak Bay, British Columbia, from 1898 to 1958. The tower includes a stair railing from Yaquina Head Light, and the site houses historic items from other lighthouses, such as a Desdemona Sands Light stopwatch, brass oil cans from Tillamook Rock Light and Heceta Head Light, and a crank handle once used at Point Sur Light. The lighthouse also contains two fourth-order Fresnel lenses.

In 1979, the Coast Guard made it an official navigational marker. The Cleft of the Rock is part of Gibbs’ home, which includes a private lighthouse museum. The grounds and tower are closed to the public, but they can be viewed from U.S. Route 101 near mile marker 166, just outside the Cape Perpetua National Scenic Area.

James Gibbs died on April 30, 2010. His daughter and son-in-law, who lived on the property for 27 years, planned to keep the lighthouse as a private aid to navigation. The name comes from Fanny Crosby’s hymn He Hideth My Soul in the Cleft of the Rock, based on Exodus 33:22.