A customer in California asked me to match a magazine picture of this lighthouse newel. I've been asked to make lighthouse newels before but have never been real excited with the design. I do like this one however. The base of this exceptionally large newel is 10 inches wide. The height will just under five feet. It will get painted and so we are using poplar (a good wood for paint grade). The top image was drawn in Google Sketchup and rendered in Irender. The bottom image was drawn and rendered in Vectorworks, a CAD program that I use for most of my designs.
The balusters in the detail below are from our Carolina baluster series (item number 2005P).  The bottoms as well as the tops follow the rake angel of the stairway.