The unusual past of San Francisco Bay's Point Montara lighthouse comes to light

For 80 years, the Point Montara light has scanned the cold waters off the coast, warning sailors away from rocky shoals. But in an earlier, hitherto secret life, it turns out, it ushered fishermen into foggy Wellfleet Harbor on Cape Cod.

How the cast-iron structure, now known to be 127 years old, made its way from coast to coast is still a mystery. But it seems clear that Point Montara's light has swung over both the Atlantic and the Pacific -- a feat to which no other lighthouse has laid claim, according to experts in the field.

Disclosed in the June issue of the Maine-based Lighthouse Digest, the startling find is based on recently unearthed government documents.

"I was, like, pumping my arm in the National Archives, going, 'Yes! Yes! I've got it!' " said Colleen MacNeney, the researcher who followed a complicated paper trail to nail down the lighthouse's provenance.

Visible from 12 miles off the coast, the Point Montara light is operated by the Coast Guard but is the centerpiece of a hostel catering to travelers wandering California 1 between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay.

"It's fantastic," said Chris Bauman, manager of the Point Montara Lighthouse Hostel. "Two separate oceans, a century of service. And nobody ever knew it!"

Its white paint peeling and its windows frosted with salt spray, the 30-foot-tall lighthouse sits on a cliff thick with ice plant. Far below, waves crash on rocks, sea birds dive for fish and seals occasionally sun themselves in a secluded cove.

"This really answers a question I've had for a long time," said Bauman, an artist who lives with his wife and two young daughters in a Victorian house on the lighthouse grounds. "I'd seen pictures of an 1880 lighthouse in exactly the same style at Lake Champlain in Vermont and thought: 'Why do we have a New England-style lighthouse here that was supposedly built in 1928?' It didn't add up."

At the 50-bed hostel, bicyclists and budget travelers pay as little as $20 a night for a berth in one of the converted barracks occupied by the Coast Guard before the light was automated decades ago. They sip espresso as they gaze out a huge kitchen window with a hypnotic view of mountains tumbling into the sea. Meditation sessions are offered every Wednesday night.