The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Is Trading Its Holiday Boat Crowd for a Boardwalk

"That use is no longer permitted."

Peter DeWitt, the Bureau of Land Management site manager at the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area, was talking about holiday weekends. On those days, 40 to 60 boats could be pulled up on the lighthouse shoreline at once. He said it to The Palm Beach Post this month, and it may be the most important line in the paper's story on the $16 million shoreline restoration that opens to the public in December.

The rebuilt shoreline holds about 17 boats at a time, first come, first served. According to The Post, that matches the site's previous average daily use. So an ordinary weekday at the lighthouse barely changes for boaters. The big holiday raft-up is the one use the project ends. Everything else on the property is being built for people who arrive by car, on foot or in a kayak.

The cap was the compromise that kept boats at all

The 17-spot cap replaced a design with no boat access at all. The Post reports that an earlier version of the project would have extended the breakwater along the shoreline and ended boat access entirely. DeWitt, who was first asked to find funding for that version, told the paper, "No one's going to fund this." He said it took him four years to get his management to consider a new design, and he called the result "a compromise."

The pressure behind all of this was erosion. The shoreline had been retreating about 7 feet a year, and the 120-acre site has lost more than 5 acres over five decades. DeWitt told The Post that the erosion was destroying habitat and causing safety problems: sand dunes were collapsing and vegetation was washing into the Intracoastal Waterway, where it blocked boaters. The BLM project page describes about a mile of eroding shoreline being stabilized. Funding comes from $8.3 million under the Great American Outdoors Act, $7 million from the Florida Inland Navigation District and $0.7 million from other sources.

The same BLM page lists "dedicated boat access spots with access to the ONA's trail system" and a new dock for ferries and water taxis. Boating still has a place in the plan. The difference is that boats get dedicated spots connected to the trails, and the shoreline is no longer an open beach for as many boats as will fit.

Who gains what once the park reopens

Seen by type of visitor, the tradeoff looks like this:

Sources disagree on the boardwalk's length. The Post gives 835 feet for the Loxahatchee River section, and the BLM project page lists about 700 feet. BLM's scope also includes an approximately 800-foot terraced wall with nine stairways down to the shoreline.

The walkers were the audience all along

The loop trail is the clearest sign of who the new park is for. Katrina Heller, executive director of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Museum, told The Post it's "a really great benefit for some locals who each morning just want to do a beautiful walk around the property or a climb of the lighthouse."

The museum is also building programs around the new space. Heller said the pavilion will mostly serve its educational work, including a monthly homeschool morning that now has a place to go in bad weather. The new lawn gives the annual River Cherish Art Festival in March more room, and Heller told The Post the museum hopes for 100 artists this year, up from 70 last year.

Paddlers get competition. With one vendor on each side of the property, DeWitt told the paper, "Hopefully a little competition between the two keeps the price nice and low." The vendors had not been named publicly when this was written.

Some of the work out on the water won't show up on opening day. The Post reports artificial reef structures and a living shoreline. More than 7,000 mangroves had been planted toward a goal of 10,000, with four plantings still to go. The limestone riprap, which gives coral a surface to grow on and supports seagrass, was finished just ahead of the seasonal high tides that run through the end of this month. DeWitt told the paper the infrastructure was 95 percent complete but "the restoration is still very much underway." After the crews leave, Florida Atlantic University will monitor whether the beaches are stable, growing or shrinking, and that work will guide future management.

The dates, and why to hold them loosely

The project was originally supposed to finish in August. DeWitt told The Post that a government shutdown early in the contract and late material deliveries pushed the schedule back. Here is the current calendar:

1. Through November: BLM's look-ahead shows final breakwater and boardwalk work.
2. Dec. 3, 10 a.m.: Invitation-only ribbon-cutting.
3. Dec. 3, 1 to 5 p.m.: Public grand opening.
4. Dec. 20: Snorkeling area expected to open.

The schedule has slipped once already, so check before you plan around any of these dates. The Post also reports that a Tequesta police boat will be kept on a lift at a new dock nearby.

If you're bringing a boat to the inlet in the meantime, conditions there were already tricky. WPTV reported in March that boaters were dealing with shifting sandbars in Jupiter Inlet. One boater told the station, "There's boats that get stuck every day." During construction, BLM notes that boat beaching spots are reduced.

What's open before December

You don't have to wait for the ribbon-cutting. The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse & Museum at 500 Captain Armour's Way is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 4 p.m. It's closed Mondays. Admission is $15 for adults, $12 for U.S. veterans and seniors 60 and older, and $8 for ages 6 to 18. Children 5 and under get in free. From October through May, guided tours run Tuesday through Friday at noon, 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. They're included with admission but can be canceled if too few people sign up.

BLM's page for the natural area lists the trails as open dawn to dusk every day. Lot 16 is closed to all public access because of Coast Guard operations, and BLM asks visitors to stay off the sensitive shoreline. Until the work is done, the project page warns of intermittent closures in some areas and a temporary reroute of about 500 feet of trail, so posted signs on site are the best guide to which paths are open on a given morning.

BLM counts more than 150,000 visitors a year at the lighthouse site and puts its value to Palm Beach County at about $14.7 million a year. In December, those visitors return to more trail, a boardwalk, two places to launch a kayak and a capped number of boat spots on the shoreline.

If you live near the inlet and want to know how being close to a park like this shows up in your home's value, Ryan Gritters can walk you through it in plain numbers. Get a free home valuation and you'll know where you stand before the grand opening.