WASHINGTON – For sale: Historic waterfront property with a spectacular, 50-foot-high view of Lake Michigan. Featuring cast-iron construction, painted red. Comes with its own Fresnel lens for signaling ships.

If that sounds attractive, act now: the Kenosha North Pierhead Lighthouse in Wisconsin is up for auction by the U.S. General Services Administration, but bids are due by Wednesday afternoon. If you miss the deadline, there’s still the Conneaut Harbor West Breakwater Light in Ohio, which is open for bidding until July 20.

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The Kenosha North Pierhead Lighthouse, overlooking Lake Michigan in Kenosha, Wis., is up for auction by the U.S. General Services Administration. Bids are due by Wednesday afternoon. Over the past half-dozen years, 22 lighthouses have been sold to the public. The Associated Press

“There’re a number of people who like to say, ‘Hey, I own a lighthouse.’ It’s good cocktail-party conversation,” said John Smith, the deputy assistant commissioner for real property utilization and disposal for the GSA’s Public Building Service.

As of Sunday afternoon, the Kenosha lighthouse’s price was at $13,000, while the one at Conneaut Harbor had received one bid for $5,000.

If the price is too high, GSA is also offering 12 historic lighthouses free, though takers must be eligible state or local entities, nonprofit corporations, historic-preservation groups, or community development organizations.

“The U.S. General Services Administration is looking for a few good stewards to preserve a key slice of the nation’s maritime history,” the agency said in a news release.

The lighthouses are being made available as part of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. The federal government owns about 250 lighthouses, which are maintained by the Coast Guard. Once critical for navigation along the nation’s coastal and inland waterways, many have been made obsolete by the advance of radio, radar and satellite navigation.

Under the terms of the legislation, if the Coast Guard decommissions a lighthouse the government tries to find a caretaker agency or buyer rather than see the structures demolished or fall apart from neglect.

“They’re in varying states of repair or disrepair,” Smith said. “They’re not cheap to maintain.”

Last fall, the agency auctioned off Ram Island Ledge Light in Casco Bay, Maine, to Jeffrey Florman of Windham, Maine, who won with a bid of $190,000. Florman has not said what he intends to do with the lighthouse.

Over the past half-dozen years, 54 lighthouses have been transferred from the federal government, including six to public agencies, 16 to local governments, three to states and 29 to nonprofits, Smith said. Twenty-two others have been sold to the public, at prices ranging from $10,000 to $260,000.

The first choice is to find a qualified entity to take over a lighthouse. Interested parties are subjected to “a rigorous application process,” according to the GSA, including a review of whether they are financially able to maintain a lighthouse.

The entities have responsibility for upkeep and must make the station available for education, park, recreation, cultural or historic-preservation purposes to the general public. If no takers can be found, the lighthouses are put up for public auction. “If they’re sold, a lot of the restrictions come off,” Smith said.

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