But the light station was automated in 1979, and the invention of GPS eventually made the tower obsolete. The tower was built in 1964 to help ships skirt Frying Pan Shoals, a nearby shallow area infamous for shipwrecks.Ībout 20 Coast Guard cadets lived at the tower full-time during the 1960s and ’70s. “Anybody who’s spent any time out in the ocean in North Carolina knows about the Frying Pan Tower,” Garry says. The ocean is an unlikely spot as any for a hotel, but that only adds to its allure. In an age off stress, little work-life balance and constant connectivity, the Pan Tower answers a growing demand for off-the-grid travel. The ex-Coast Guard light station is located approximately 34 miles off the coast of North Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean. Their most recent fishing adventure was unique: The Bicketts spent the night at the Frying Pan Tower. “My son Jonathan and I, that’s our time that we’ve spent together all of his life,” Garry says.
Both have used the sport to build relationships with their sons. Fishing became more than a pastime as they aged, too.
Garry and Bill say they were raised with fishing poles in their hands and their feet in a boat. He reflects on the day and the beauty of the sun setting across the North Atlantic Ocean. Who knows, maybe I'll find a decommissioned oil rig in the Gulf and turn it into a franchise.Leaning back in his hammock, Garry Bickett looks over at his brother, Bill. "Owning it has been the most fun I've had in my entire life, and I'll leave with a million stories to tell. "It's truly a place to ignore the world, but I'm just ready to let go," Neal says. He's nearing 60 now and believes it's time for someone younger to step in. His prices are robust prices: $598 per person for a three-day stay, or $1,295 if you prefer to take a helicopter to the tower rather than a boat. Neal says he's proven everything he set out to prove, including the fact such a crazy project could work. The waves are as wide as the tower, but it was built so well, you don't move. "The ocean goes from small waves to giant hills of water, and the color of the water turns into the most amazing aqua sherbert, because it's frothed up with air. "It's just the wind and the rain and an occasional flying fish," says Neal. On at least three occasions, Neal says he's been on the tower during hurricanes, including when the eye passed directly over the tower as he sat there. He loves the excitement of the tower, and business has been great, thanks to people who want a unique, if not strange, bed-and-breakfast experience. Neal says his risk paid off in countless ways. Then GPS navigation made the tower obsolete. The Coast Guard staffed it until 1979, when the beacon was automated. It was built in 1964 at a cost of $2 million to warn passing ships of the shallow Frying Pan Shoals. Neal says his mission was to turn it into an inn while keeping the structure largely intact as a monument to 1960s construction ingenuity. However, the Coast Guard thought that was a little low, so they negotiated a price of $85,000, which Neal thought was more than fair.Īt that point, an Oklahoma native who had been on the ocean only once before became the official owner of a rust-covered light house that towered 140 feet above the Atlantic. In a move that many have said was crazy, Neal decided to bid $11,262 for the tower and turned out to be the high bidder.
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