An abortive project, begun in 1835, to design a light on a stone pier at the site was cancelled when the cost proved prohibitive.

Major Hartman Bache, who had devised the cancelled stone pier plan, was directed to try the new technique, and assisted by Lt. George Meade he initially constructed a conical iron structure resting on nine piles.

The greater brightness of Brandywine Shoal's beacon, even though it was much further away from the test point than the other two, was a nail in the coffin for the reflector system, and the board quickly went about installing Fresnel lenses in all lighthouses upon assuming authority in 1852.

In support of this, a small artificial harbor was constructed using a partial circle of riprap; it remains in place, though the last traces of the old light have since been removed.

[2] In June 2011, the General Services Administration made the Brandywine Shoal Light (along with 11 others) available at no cost to public organizations willing to preserve them.