Rob Benchley at Sankaty Head Lighthouse, photo by Jeremy D’Entremont

This is re-edited version of an interview with Rob Benchley first heard in episode 81 in September 2020. Rob is the volunteer modern day keeper of Sankaty Head Lighthouse in the Sconset village on Nantucket in Massachusetts. He’s also an accomplished photojournalist who has been the staff photographer for three island newspapers, and his photography has been featured in the New York Times and the Boston Globe. Rob was one of the first people on the scene when Great Point Lighthouse on Nantucket was toppled by a storm in March 1984.

He has written or co-written several books including Keeping the Light, about the historic move of Sankaty Head Lighthouse back from the edge of an eroding bluff in 2007.  Rob and his wife Carol, a retired Nantucket school teacher, live in a house they built together in ‘Sconset.