Port Sanilac Light placement and the unique shape were dictated by and created because of budgetary constraints (Congress appropriated only half the money requested). Designed by Eleventh District Engineer Captain Charles E. L. B. Davis, the design has been called "both unique and architecturally significant in its elegance." The tower is white with a red roof. This "handsome" lighthouse shares its design with only one other, Ile Aux Galets, also known as Skilligallee Island Light, on Lake Michigan. The Port Sanilac Light tower is capped with a cast iron lantern room, which still houses a fourth order Fresnel lens manufactured by Barbier and
Port Sanilac Light Fenestre of Paris. The lens and its brass reflector on one segment (the reflector blocked the lens on the landward side) send the light out in a 300 degree arc across the lake. Its focal plane is shines a beam of light visible for up to in all directions, thus closing most of the -gap mentioned above. The light sits atop high ground at the head of a small bay. This is one of only 70 such Fresnel lenses that are still operational in the United States, sixteen of which are use on the Great Lakes of which eight are