Lighthouse of Love Print E-mail
Written by Heather Steeves   
Friday, August 01, 2008

Bernard Man Performs Seaside Marriages as Part of Larger Mission

Irving Silverman can’t drive a boat. He is legally blind. He was born with a visual deficiency. Now, at age 88, he has only 8 percent of overall vision.

Bernard summer resident Nancy Silverman built the octagonal lighthouse for her husband, Irving, who loves being near the sea. His poor eyesight prevented him from having his own boat to operate on the water.—STAFF PHOTO BY HEATHER STEEVES
Bernard summer resident Nancy Silverman built the octagonal lighthouse for her husband, Irving, who loves being near the sea. His poor eyesight prevented him from having his own boat to operate on the water.—STAFF PHOTO BY HEATHER STEEVES
Knowing his love of water, Silverman’s wife, Nancy, told him she would build him a ‘vertical boat.’ Working with her husband’s nephew, who is an architect, she had a lighthouse built for him across the street from their home in the Mount Desert Island village of Bernard. The octagonal tower, which has elements of many lighthouses, was mainly inspired by the Egg Rock lighthouse off Bar Harbor in Frenchman Bay.

It’s a small lighthouse. Barely 40 feet tall. Port in a Storm Bookstore’s tiny branch, Port Side, occupies the first floor. The second floor serves as Silverman’s study. The wooden spiral staircase is lined with recessed shelves holding figurines and wedding photos.

Climbing to the top, the glass-paned lantern room was modeled on a Polish synagogue, but the views are all Maine. Through the windows, lobster boats buzz by and seagulls fly overhead.

The shingled tower isn’t a true lighthouse in the sense that most people think of. It has never functioned as an official aid for mariners navigating inshore waters.

Silverman calls his lighthouse a labor of love. And the wood-frame tower has, in fact, served as a beacon of hope, love and safety — for a day at least — for dozens of couples who have chosen to have their civil union ceremony performed there over the years.

When his wife died in 2002, Silverman wanted to honor her. In a fitting tribute, he became a notary public, enabling him to legally perform marriages. He saw his lighthouse as a vehicle for instilling love and inspiring people to marry and enjoy marriage as he did. Since obtaining his license, he has united 21 couples to date and had six more weddings scheduled in August.

Irving Silverman—STAFF PHOTO BY HEATHER STEEVES
Irving Silverman—STAFF PHOTO BY HEATHER STEEVES
A summer resident, Silverman performs legal wedding ceremonies from May to October. He does not accept payment for what he does. Instead, he asks the couple to donate $200 to Hospice of Hancock County or a charity of the couple’s choice. This was the organization that helped Nancy and later him through his widowhood.

“When Nancy died, I felt half of me died too,” he said.

The ceremonies, none of which are religious, are dedicated to his late wife.

“I love this lady,” he said, gazing at her picture in the lighthouse’s lantern room. “She’s not here now, but she’s in this room. She’s in this building. If I feel it, it’s enough. I feel her presence in every marriage ceremony I do. If I can impart the happiness we had, I will be fulfilled.”

The third floor housing the lantern room was modeled on a Polish synagogue.—STAFF PHOTO BY HEATHER STEEVES
The third floor housing the lantern room was modeled on a Polish synagogue.—STAFF PHOTO BY HEATHER STEEVES
Silverman has guidelines. Couples must have known each other for at least a year. He interviews each before the ceremony. This allows him to personalize each wedding.

“I spend a lot of time talking to people who are married,” he said. “For most of them it was a blur, they don’t remember anything. I said that that is wrong.”

 Jeff Passe of Charlotte, N.C., and Susan Cohen of Annapolis, Md., love lighthouses. He proposed to her at Montauk Point Lighthouse on Long Island. The couple did some research and then traveled collectively over 1,000 miles to be married by Silverman.

“We had to submit essays about love and marriage to Irving as part of the process. My wife and I are both writers, of a sort, so we put a lot into them. We were pleasantly surprised to see him incorporate our own words into his service,” said Jeff Passe, who had an October wedding last year. “The wedding party was just the two of us and our kids. He brought them into the service with various responsibilities, with lots of humor, sentimentality, and, always, love. He is truly a remarkable story.”

This is what Silverman hopes for.

“You can’t come in here and not feel secure, comfortable and comforted.”

— Irving Silverman

“Every ceremony I do, I believe is memorable. I give the couple a copy of the ceremony — it’s all scripted,” he said. “Hopefully, they have very, very fond memories of the ceremony.”

Besides honoring Nancy, Silverman has another agenda. He’d like to put a dent in America’s 50 percent divorce rate. As part of his mission, he aims to marry more couples than any other Maine notary. This means he must complete at least 29 more unions to reach his goal of 50.

 “I really would like to be known as ‘Mr. Marriage,’” he said. “I take such delight in seeing a couple come here as two individual people and come out of this ceremony as a fused couple.”

Nancy Silverman
Nancy Silverman
As a notary public, Silverman can marry people anywhere in Maine, but he sticks to his lighthouse as a wedding chapel. He gets regular requests to perform ceremonies outside of the building.

“I have not accepted those requests,” he explained. “Because as soon as I take myself away from this physical structure, which has Nancy’s spirit in it, I then become a mere functionary of the state and I choose to be much more than that.”

While Silverman pursues his quest, his lighthouse has gained some fame. So far, the structure has appeared in 10 calendars and three jigsaw puzzles. The tower was featured in the 1999 movie “The Cider House Rules” and has appeared in advertisements for J. Crew, L.L. Bean and The New Yorker.

So why do people flock to Bernard to get hitched?

“The wedding party was just the two of us and our kids. He brought them into the service with various responsibilities, with lots of humor, sentimentality, and, always, love.”

— jeff passe, charlotte, Nc

“They love the idea of getting married in a lighthouse because it’s a beacon of safety and security,” Silverman said. “You can’t come in here and not feel secure, comfortable and comforted. People who’ve been married here still remember this place and many of them come back repeatedly. This may be selfish, but they come back to see me. In a way that’s one of the catalysts to making me want to be here.”

Silverman acknowledges that being married today isn’t what it was when he and Nancy walked down the aisle.

“It’s harder to be married today than it was when I first married 60 years ago,” he observed. “There are different pressures.”

Performing marriages is his life’s work.

“Nancy loved me. She loved me with an intensity that was apparent every minute, every day of our marriage. She made me very joyful. I treasure this and my children do too,” he reflected. “This is a place of love.”

To get married at his seaside chapel, Irving Silverman can be reached at (207) 244-5192.