The Windward Point Lighthouse on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay has seen better days.

Also known as Faro Punta Barloventa, the 111-year-old all-steel structure that originally had a whale oil light perched atop it is pretty rusty.

So rusty, in fact, that it was listed for demolition about five years ago, according to Suffolk’s Cathy McEntire of McEntire Design.

McEntire, the owner and lead architect, knows this because after her firm landed a contract to design a rehab of the lighthouse, she’s been delving into its history and has visited Guantanamo twice.

“We are repairing it — trying to save it,” she said. “It’s an historical icon for Cuba; it’s on all the tourist stuff that you pick up at the exchange.”

McEntire was brought onto the project by Florida-based Islands Mechanical Contractor, which has handled Guantanamo Bay projects for the Department of Defense for years.

“They called and said, ‘Would you be interested in working on Guatanamo Bay?’” McEntire said. “I said, ‘Seriously? It’s December — when can we come?’”

“It was a recommendation, basically,” McEntire added of how her company came to be tapped.

Right now, McEntire said, the lighthouse is one of three Gauntanamo Bay projects her company is involved in, the others being heating, ventilation and air-conditioning repairs to the Fleet and Family Support Center, and additions to 52 residences.

“We just started working with the contractor,” McEntire said. “Hopefully it’s a long-term thing. They are happy with our work, and we are happy with them.”

The whale oil light in the 60-feet-tall lighthouse was decommissioned in 1955 and moved to the U.S. Coast Guard Museum. A weaker solar-powered light, installed in 1988, was in place until it was removed for the rehab.

McEntire took a team of three others to the base right before Christmas to document what is there. She has just arrived home from a second trip after the lighthouse was sandblasted to remove rust.

“We looked at what they need to do to repair it,” McEntire said. “We do all the drawings that will show them the structural repairs and life safety repairs that need to be done so they can at least open the site to the public.”

All that work will be completed back in Suffolk.

While the lighthouse has been closed for some time, it is part of a museum. The surrounding grounds have the remains of boats used to flee Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

Relations between the U.S. and Cuba might be warming up, but the McEntire team wasn’t allowed off the naval base to sightsee. Barbed wire, sentry towers and thousands of land mines seal the base off from the rest of Cuba.

Complete with McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, “It’s a little slice of America,” Cathy McEntire said of the base.

There are roughly 6,000 people there, she said. The majority of workers are brought in from somewhere else, with many Filipinos and Jamaicans.

“We have worked on a lot of fun projects, but as far as going out of town … this one ranks up there for us — up there with getting to do the light rail in Norfolk,” McEntire said.