By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Perched on a rock just north of Galankin Island, the Sitka Lighthouse snagged a feature spotlight as one of “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals,” a newly released Netflix series that showcases interesting vacation destinations.
The show is currently one of the top ten most-watched shows on the mammoth video streaming site.
Sitka Lighthouse owner Teal West told the Sentinel she hopes outsiders will come to Sitka and experience it as she does.
“The message that I was really trying to send more than anything is that I want people to visit our community, and I want people to enjoy Sitka as much as I enjoy it… It’s better than I could’ve ever imagined and I’m so excited to share Sitka with the world,” West said in an interview.
She said the years-long road to Netflix began with a call in 2019.
“They actually cold called me… This has been in the works for a really long time… They reached out to me in December of 2019, and so I started an interview process,” West recalled. “I think I went through about four interviews with the producers.”
Megan Batoon, Jo Franco and Luis Ortiz, from left, hosts of the new Netflix series “The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals,” stand in front of the Sitka Lighthouse recently. The lighthouse was shown on the series which features interesting vacation destinations. (Photo provided to the Sentinel)
As the show entered production in early 2020, the coronavirus threatened to derail the project.
“We are one of 24 to be featured on Netflix this year, so that’s pretty big. What happened is one of the producers of the show had a friend that had been in Sitka who told him, ‘Hey, you’re doing this show, there’s a lighthouse in Sitka. You should see if you want to be on it.’ And the rest is history,” West said. “We were selected in March, pre-COVID, and it was really interesting, they had been filming all over the world. They selected us and within three weeks they called and were like, ‘We don’t know if we can get to Alaska anymore.’”
Restructuring took months, she said, but with masks and large-scale testing for coronavirus cases, filming moved forward.
“We were going to make this work, we did a lot of testing, of course the vaccination wasn’t out by then. I think they were testing every 12 hours, everyone was in masks… We were just being really careful that nobody tested positive, but we had backup plans for everything,” she said.
The show went live last week and features 24 vacation rentals at locations from Bali, Indonesia, to Sitka.
For West, the goal is to attract people to visit town and spur local economic activity.
“My goal always is that people will continue to visit Sitka and really spend their money throughout their day here… It all trickles down… I used the Netflix platform to get my place highlighted, but really it was for my community more than anything,” West said. “This was all done where it was promotional, and I will reap the benefits, but I really hope my community will reap the benefits… It’s a beautiful 13 minute commercial for Sitka.”
The segment of the show dedicated to Sitka and the lighthouse runs for 13 minutes on the private island episode of the show. Sitka was not the only Alaskan destination featured. The show also visited Tordrillo Mountain Lodge on Judd Lake, nestled well away from the road system in the Alaska Range west of Anchorage.
The show rocketed into Netflix’ top ten chart within two days, a rare occurrence for a show filmed without a celebrity host.
“The show went live on Friday and within two days we were in the top ten, so that’s huge. And Netflix did not say how many people have watched the show, but we’ve heard from one of the producers that that’s huge to go into the top ten and not have a movie star in it,” West reported.
In the show’s Sitka segment, the three hosts, Megan Batoon, Luis Ortiz, and Jo Franco, enjoy their time on the island, eat king salmon delivered by West’s husband on the F/V Myra, and explore Silver Bay on zodiac boats.
“They featured my husband’s commercial fishing boat. They really wanted to push wild Alaska salmon, and the state of Alaska provides that type of fish for the rest of the world, so they really did talk a lot about the salmon and how good wild seafood is,” West said.
Sitka’s weather in August of 2020 was damp and gray, but West said that fit well with the lighthouse as a symbol.
“They actually spun it so they were going out to this lighthouse and it was the perfect weather because you were going out to this lighthouse and it was kind of guiding you in,” she said.
Located near both Crescent Harbor and Sealing Cove, the red beacon atop the lighthouse stands out, particularly on darker days and in foul weather. The lighthouse is also beneath the flight path of planes arriving and departing from the Sitka airport.
West said because of this, many of her guests at the lighthouse are airline employees.
The lighthouse was designed and built in the 1980s by Sitka veterinarian Burgess Bauder. Even then, the impressive scenery and unique architecture drew attention from the lower 48. The Los Angeles Times had feature stories about the lighthouse and Bauder in 1987 and 1989.
Back in the present, West hopes that the lighthouse will serve as a Sitka landmark, much like the Mt. Roberts tramway in Juneau.
“Everyone that lives in Sitka knows of the lighthouse, but I’m trying to make the lighthouse a true landmark for Sitka,” she said. “It’s been seen in art and seen in photographs… It’s kind of like we’re giving the lighthouse the spotlight it’s deserved all these years.”
