In the mid-nineteenth century, due in large part to the booming lumber business, which relied on easy shipping of raw timber from Canada to planing mills in western Vermont, commerce on Lake Champlain significantly increased.

Despite Dow's focus on the building's framework, he ornamented his lighthouse with a mansard roof and scrolled window frames typical of the then-fashionable French Second Empire style.

Nineteen years later, in 1952, it was put up for auction and sold to Mr. & Mrs. Paul and Lorraine Bessette of Winooski, Vermont, for $50, to be dismantled for timber to construct a home.

After this sale, Vermont historian Ralph Nading Hill ferried Electra Havemeyer Webb to the now-derelict lighthouse.

It includes examples of the most sophisticated urban furniture produced in the nation as well as many simpler pieces made by country cabinetmakers for use in rural homes.

Individual craftspeople and designers like Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose work can be seen in the Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial Building, continued to work for upper class patrons, but inexpensive, factory-made chairs, tables, beds, and stands flooded and eager market of middle-class Victorians.

The popularity of carved decoration and elaborate upholster, characteristic of the period, can be seen on the furniture displayed in the parlor of the Colchester Reef Light.