Lighthouse painted cream with white trim. The original lantern and lens were destroyed by vandals in 1969. By early 2001, the lighthouse was in very poor shape, with no roof and only scraps of its lantern; this earned it a spot on the Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List. However, the Compañía de Parques Nacionales beautifully restored the lighthouse in 2002-03. The restoration cost $2.3 million and is part of a larger project creating a public recreation facility in the area. Satellite view shows the swimming pool and other facilities located adjacent to the light station. On the beach nearby is the metal ruin of a former range light, also long abandoned. Located southeast of Arroyo on the southeastern coast of the island.
The Arroyo or Point Figuras lighthouse entered service on March 16, 1893. It was built as a link between the Caja de Muertos and Maunabo lighthouses, and as a guide for the Arroyo and Patillas ports. Little is known about its construction but it evidently served as model for the Vieques lighthouses, which are similar and share the peculiar pattern of alternating circles and rectangles at the base of the cornice. The Arroyo lighthouse, however, did not have the same distribution of spaces, the tower was taller, and the building originally had no rear door. The lighthouse measures 59 feet long by 26 feet wide.
It was originally painted light gray with white details and black baseboard. The fifth-order lens projected its light twelve miles away. The octagonal tower is 44 feet tall and is located at the center of the building. In 1938 an automatic light was installed near the beach and the lighthouse was boarded and closed. The building reopened during World War II as an observation post and was closed again after the war. The army leased its surroundings until 1963, after that date the structure was vandalized repeatedly and deteriorated to the point that only the walls, the tower, and a small segment of the roof remained. The lantern and the lens were apparently destroyed by vandals in 1969. The National Parks Company restored the lighthouse in 2003 and incorporated it to the adjacent Point Guilarte National Park. The lantern and the tower’s stairway are the only elements that did not follow the structure’s original design.
