A nonprofit group wants to turn a delapidated lighthouse with a sweeping view of Long Island Sound into a bed-and-breakfast.

Execution Rocks Lighthouse’s ladder is rusty, the stairs are rickety and the plaster walls are crumbling. There’s also a rotting hole in one floor. But the Philadephia-based nonprofit preservation group hopes a $1.2 million renovation will draw a steady stream of visitors and overnight bed-and-breakfast guests.

Execution Rocks Lighthouse is currently off-limits to visitors but may someday become a tourist destination. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Historically Significant Structures Inc., received the deed to the 1850 structure from the federal government. The group’s president says no one has lived there since 1978. The group has raised $2,000, but is seeking more donations. The lighthouse is between Davids’ Island and Sands Point on Long Island.

Rumored has it that the name came from before the American Revolutionary War when the British executed people by chaining them to the rocks at low tide, allowing the high tide to drown them. But historians maintain that the name was chosen to reflect the historically dangerous shipping area.