Harbour Town resident Cheri Eagan believes her beloved little neighborhood may be one of Lake Conroe’s best-kept secrets.
The gated community of a little more than 200 homes is on a peninsula extending into the lake near the end of FM 830 and beyond the Seven Coves neighborhood.
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Perhaps one of the more interesting little-known facts about the community is that its residents are the caretakers of Lake Conroe’s only lighthouse which serves as a beacon for boaters on the lake.
“It’s given a lot of love,” said Harbour Town resident Kathleen Turk of the nearly 50-year-old landmark.
About Harbour Town
Turk said the neighborhood was founded by three attorneys in the early 1970s as Lake Conroe was being constructed. They had visited the Harbour Town community in South Carolina and wanted to bring a similar concept to Lake Conroe, right down to the design of the lighthouse.
A story is told among residents that the dirt from digging Lake Conroe became this lakeside neighborhood.
The townhomes were built first then free-standing homes came later. The Harbour Town Yacht Club and Harbour Town community association were organized as nonprofits and the community exists as self governing in an unincorporated area of Montgomery County.
Beyond the neighborhood and jutting out into Lake Conroe is the land that the Outrigger in Harbour Town Club and the lighthouse reside on. This piece of land is owned by the San Jacinto River Authority and Harbour Town leases the property thus making the residents custodians of the club and lighthouse. This lease was arranged in 1978.
Lighthouse history
The design of the 90-foot tall Lake Conroe lighthouse is patterned after the Harbour Town lighthouse in South Carolina which has an octagon shape with wide red and white stripes.
The construction date is a bit murky but several sources date its completion to 1977. Some sources say the lighthouse was built as a navigation point for Lake Conroe boaters. Eagan and Turk believe it may have been a selling point to attract people to the neighborhood where roughly half the homes are second homes for the owner.
The outside of the structure is concrete and wooden stairs spiral upward leading to a landing near the top. The light is operational.
Every few years the residents are tasked with changing the bulb. Eagan said the lighthouse is painted about every five years which she said is a major undertaking.
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“It doesn’t need a lot of upkeep but the upkeep is needed or it would fall in the lake,” Turk joked. The site is not accessible to the public but it can be viewed by boat on the lake or the Landing at Seven Coves offers views of the structure.
The lighthouse is also the focal point of several webcams. It can be viewed online at the Harbour Town website and one of ABC 13’s webcams is attached to the top.
When tragedy struck
In 1999, the lighthouse was struck by lightning and damaged by a tornado.
Anita Dodd, a 40-plus year resident of Harbor Town, took up the cause of getting the lighthouse rebuilt. She made a sign and took it to Lake Conroe businesses letting them know that $150,000 was need to repair the landmark.
Business owners donated to the fund, she organized fundraisers and she also took pieces from the damaged lighthouse and had local artists make art pieces of them. They were auctioned off to raise funds for the structure that was rebuilt with sturdier material.
Now the lighthouse stands as landmark of the lake and the neighborhood.
“When we’re driving over the FM 1097 bridge and my grandkids see the lighthouse light they know we’re almost home,” Eagan said.
A simple lake life
The quiet, close-knit neighborhood and the family oriented residents are aspects that drew in Eagan and Turk and made Harbour Town their permanent home.
The community offers opportunities for boating, sailing, bird watching, fishing, two private beaches and an active social scene among neighbors with many parties and events at The Outrigger. The point in Harbour Town also offers views of the Lake Conroe Dam, the FM 1907 bridge, Bird Island and Walden lies just across the water.
“People don’t move out, they move within the neighborhood depending on their needs,” Turk said. “It’s a really neat place to live.”