“We lived in Belle Haven [Connecticut] and when I was 10, my dad gave me a rowboat. I used to row out past the Captain Island lighthouse and think to myself, ‘I'd like to live there one day,’” recalls Jason Pilalas. Decommissioned in 1970, the Great Captain Island lighthouse was too dilapidated for use by the early 2000s. But further east along the Long Island Sound lay a near-identical lighthouse. Several decades – and a successful career – after Pilalas first conceived his lighthouse dream, this twin came up for sale. The Morgan Point light was deactivated much earlier, in 1919, and its lantern removed. The old tower became leaky and uninhabitable, but a ranch-style addition was used for many years as a summer residence by a New York couple. In 1991 they offered it for sale and Jason and Rena Pilalas became the lighthouse's third owners. Meticulously restored, the property might be viewed as the jewel in the couple's impressive collection of nautical memorabilia – along with a 44.2-metre motor yacht named Rena.
After 55 years of marriage, Jason and Rena Pilalas finish each other's sentences spontaneously. The stories of their lives are so intertwined
