“Honey, why don’t we just sell our house and move to the Outer Banks to be close to the ‘other woman’ in our marriage?” suggested John Havel’s wife, Aida, 14 years into her husband’s “tryst.”

“I had never noticed her up close until Aida and I saw her together in 2003,” Havel admits. “She was absolutely amazing.”

That other woman? She is the tallest, most recognizable, and regarded by some as the most beautiful in America — the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

“Hatteras has the most elaborate Victorian ironwork of any lighthouse,” Havel says, now nearly breathless in his retelling. “She’s unique. She’s magnificent.”

For Havel, the son of a New Jersey ironworker, the lighthouse’s distinctive railing posts and Italianate brackets ignited and fueled a passion that now borders on obsession. The infatuation drove the couple to put their home on the market, pack up their lives, and move 200 miles east from Raleigh. In 2017, the Havels relocated to Salvo so that Havel could at last be with his second true love. He wanted to know everything there was to know about her.

When the love affair first began two decades ago, Havel was surprised to find that the object of his affection was shrouded in mystery. “The more questions I asked, the more questions I had,” he says. He started digging. What did the original iron fence surrounding the lighthouse look like? What happened to the original cast-iron window pediments? Where did the marble flooring come from? To answer his many questions, he would have to forge his own path through archives and countless interviews. A room on the fourth floor of his home became his office.

Every book on the subject, categorized by author or subject, and dozens of labeled binders full of research are sandwiched along bookshelves that line the room. Artifacts and lighthouse figurines adorn every nook, and ephemera fills any bare space. A table blocks the doors leading to the deck, its surface hidden by neatly arranged piles of primary sources and a set of some of the earliest known photographs of the lighthouse. Cardboard bankers boxes filled with copies of brochures and magazines sit on the floor. It’s hard to fathom how many rooms it would take to hold all the hard copies of Havel’s digital files pertaining to the lighthouse.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in the Museum Resource Center archive for the National Park Service and the Outer Banks History Center. I’ve been to the U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office in D.C., the National Archives in Washington, and the National Archives in Philadelphia. This room has more than any of those specifically on the Hatteras Lighthouse,” he says proudly.

Havel’s dedication has earned him a reputation. He’s a trusted independent researcher and an indispensable member of the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society. He’s a close ally of the National Park Service and regularly volunteers his knowledge, expertise, and time to the park’s staff. A persistent advocate of the lighthouse’s long-needed restoration, he recently watched as the fruits of his labor took shape: In January, Cape Hatteras National Seashore embarked on an expansive $19.2 million lighthouse restoration project.

Some of that restoration focuses on Havel’s beloved ironwork. The missing ornamental cast-iron window pediments will be recast and replaced. The missing iron fence that originally surrounded the lighthouse will be replicated. The ironwork in the lantern room and watch deck will be repaired.

“Everything will be the way it was. Looking back over my 20 years of research, I couldn’t be happier,” Havel says. “Hatteras, being the American icon that she is, deserves this.”