116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: History of The Lighthouse
112-year-old Cedar Rapids supper club destroyed in Aug. 14 fire
Finding early information in newspaper archives about The Lighthouse, the 112-year-old roadhouse-turned-supper club on Mount Vernon Road SE, is hit and miss for the period before the 1920s.
First, there were two Lighthouse Inns in the area. One was in North Liberty, operated by Ruby and James Stewart and often raided by authorities for having slot machines.
The other Lighthouse Inn opened in 1912 along the Lincoln Highway in Linn County. It’s the one whose lighthouse became iconic. It was destroyed in an Aug. 14 fire.
The Linn County Assessor’s Office shows a building went up on the restaurant’s site in 1907, but the restaurant wasn’t built until 1912. Tara Templeman, curator and collections manager at The History Center, speculates the 1907 structure may have been built as traveler accommodations and the restaurant added five years later.
Keep in mind that Prohibition in Iowa lasted from 1916 to 1933, and The Lighthouse had a reputation as a stop for Chicago gangsters and as a speakeasy, where people could buy liquor illegally. The supper club also had a brief brush with Hollywood in the 1970s.
Owners
The earliest newspaper ads for the Lighthouse began appearing in 1921, calling it “The Bright Spot on the Highway, Three Little Miles from Town on Mt. Vernon Road.” They also called it “Lighthouse, the Sandwich Inn.”
It was open for lunch or dinner, serving “choice barbecue and toasted sandwiches” and “Real Italian Spaghetti.”
Robert M. Ulch was the owner by 1930, when the restaurant entrance was flanked by two miniature stone lighthouses, at least for a while.
When John Bunting and Fred Sommerbeck were denied entrance to the inn in January 1931, they rammed their car through the entrance. They pleaded guilty to malicious damage to property and were fined $50 and costs.
Soon after that, in 1932, Edwin McCoy bought The Lighthouse and added tourist cabins to the property.
Virgil Rose leased the Lighthouse “Lodge” Jan 1, 1940, before buying it from McCoy in August. He closed the restaurant for a week to redecorate and did another full remodel in 1945. Rose died in an airplane crash in Minnesota in August 1953 while on a fishing trip to Bemidji.
Harold “Woody” Woodford and his wife, Dorothy, began managing the Lighthouse in 1952 and would own and operate it until 1975, when they retired and moved to Guttenberg.
In 1959, the Woodfords changed The Lighthouse entrance to the side of the building and enlarged the restrooms.
The Lighthouse nearly caught fire in 1964 when the former Wendy Oaks Supper Club across the road was destroyed by fire.
The Gazette reported: "The blaze leveled the building and caused an estimated $70,000 damage. At one time the fire nearly jumped the roadway separating it from the neighboring Lighthouse supper club, threatening that building, too.
“At one point heat and sparks from the fire caused the roof of the Lighthouse to begin smoking in spite of the wall of water being poured on it by firemen.“
Hollywood connection
In 1976, the Woodfords leased the restaurant to Ron Ameche, son of the famed actor, Don Ameche, who won an Oscar for his supporting role in “Cocoon” in 1986.
Ron Ameche, who trained as a chef in New York City, was working at the University Athletic Club in Iowa City in 1961. Several years later, in 1965, he took over managing the Elmcrest Country Club in Cedar Rapids, leaving there in1969.
After managing country clubs in Bettendorf and in Rockford, Ill., he returned to the Athletic Club as head chef in 1974. Two years later, he landed at The Lighthouse.
He remodeled the one-story brick building — choosing Early American decor with checkered tablecloths and a fireplace — and renamed it “Ron Ameche’s Supper Club.”
Ameche moved on in 1978 and opened the Pumpernickel, a small tavern in Coralville, open for lunch and dinner six days a week. Twenty years later, he began managing Zuber’s in Amana.
“I closed the Pumpernickel because it was getting harder to compete against the chains,” he said. “But this is fun,” he said of the family-style German fare.
Ron Ameche was living in Homestead, one of the Amana Colonies, when he died in 2002 at age 66.
Last chapter
Following Ameche’s two years, Daryl Babcock and his wife Josephine bought The Lighthouse and incorporated it in September 1979 as the Cedar Rapids Lighthouse Inn, Ltd.
When Daryl died in 1984, Josie took the reins. In 1986, she married Theron Manson, and the restaurant soon had a new nautical décor.
During a remodel in the 1990s, a bullet hole said to be from the gun of visiting mobster John Dillinger was covered.
Theron told a Gazette reporter in 2002 that the restaurant was a speakeasy during the Prohibition years and a stopping place for Chicago gangsters Al Capone and John Dillinger. “If these walls could talk, you’d get quite a history,” he said.
The Mansons were still managing the Lighthouse in 1995 when it was featured in a Gazette “Dining Out” column. Some of the restaurant employees had been there for more than 18 years.
“We’re an old-fashioned mom-and-pop operation,” Manson said. “We cut all our own steaks and make the salad dressings and soups.”
The Lighthouse celebrated its centennial in 2012. The Mansons had no plans at the time to retire but had already picked a successor for when they did: Lighthouse Manager Steve McAtee, who bought the supper club from them in 2016.
The Lighthouse Inn, 6905 Mount Vernon Road SE in Cedar Rapids, was built in 1912. The restaurant, shown in July 2002, was a speakeasy during Prohibition and reportedly a place Chicago gangsters would stop for a meal. (Gazette archives)
The Lighthouse Inn, 6905 Mount Vernon Rd. SE in Cedar Rapids, as it appeared in June 1998. (Gazette archives)
Nautical and lighthouse themes await patrons on April 18, 2024, at The Lighthouse Inn Supper Club in Cedar Rapids. (Geoff Stellfox/The Gazette)
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