[6] It took 30 workers to set each cast iron beam 12 ft (3.7 m) into the Chesapeake Bay's bottom.

This lens was replaced, and the additional piles and riprap were placed around the foundation in order to protect it.

It is currently the last unaltered screwpile cottage-type lighthouse on its original foundation in the Chesapeake Bay.

In 2019, a Lighthouse Society spokesman said that the steel substructure, last replaced in the 1980s, is severely rusted and requires $300,000 in repairs.

Fortunately, the cast iron screw pilings remain in sound condition, "as good today as they were 144 years ago", said the Baltimore Sun in reporting on the needed funding in August 2019.