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A real scream

For some people, decorating with a jack-o'-lantern and cobwebs just doesn't cut it.

By STEPHANIE HAYES
Published October 26, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Ted McLaren] Paul Duryea's Palm Harbor "Mansion of the Macabre" includes animatronic devices, "sinister smells," sound machines and infrared sensor controls. [Times photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes] Joanne Hall of Land O'Lakes

Our house, is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard.

An angel of death on the roof. A life-sized Johnny Depp pirate on the porch. Demented clowns on the grass. An electric chair to zap trespassers. Kitsch everywhere that violates deed restrictions. La la la la la la la.

Halloween is here in all its strange glory. The holiday has erupted into a $5-billion American shopping bonanza - just venture down Target's "Boo-levard" or the Publix candy aisle to glimpse the frenzy.

Halloween started out mildly enough. Pagan Celts marked the end of summer by rounding up cattle and building shelter for the cold months, nary a fog machine or flickering pumpkin head around.

Flash forward to 2006, and you're more likely to see folks hanging off ladders, stringing lights and perusing party stores to prepare for the season.

So what's the deal?

We found a handful of energetic Halloween enthusiasts to learn what makes them go all Clark Griswold on their homes come October.

You can bet it has nothing to do with cattle.

1608 Canopy Blvd.,

Palm Harbor

WHO: Paul Duryea, 56

DAYTIME HAUNT: Orthodontist; originator of the Midas bracket system, the original 24-karat gold brace. He's also really into dragons, which are peppered throughout his Palm Harbor orthodontic office.

DON'T STRAY ONTO THE PROPERTY: The theme is "Mansion of the Macabre." There's an animatronic scarecrow and coffin and an electric chair "for individuals who stray onto the property." Also, passive infrared sensor controls, sound effects, "sinister smells," a hunchback of Notre Dame, angel of death and crawling vampire on the roof and a grave digger in the yard. Oh, and a skull bearing - what else? - gold braces.

CHA CHING: This is no tinfoil craft fair. Duryea said his Halloween display is valued in the "mid to high five figures. All I can say is it's considerable." Still, he's into giving back. Proceeds from a private Halloween party at the house will benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

FUN FACT: Duryea keeps the spooky stuff in a 700-square-foot storage locker along with dental records and molds. Six men in two 26-foot trucks delivered the goods to his 4,000-square-foot home this year.

WHY? It's the ultimate puzzle; he spends his free time trying to figure out how to make his ideas come to life. "The most interesting part of what I do is I set myself out a problem to solve and figure a way to solve it. Most of the things I have are not manufactured, they have to be manufactured. I go to Home Depot and walk in and half the people think I work there."

By STEPHANIE HAYES Times Staff Writer

3320 Lake Padgett Drive, Land O'Lakes

WHO: Joanne Hall, 72, Joe Hall, 70, and their daughters, Diane Wegener, 43, and Lisa Hall, 42.

DAYTIME HAUNT: Joanne was a stay-at-home mom, and Joe, now retired, was a medical CT scanner engineer. Diane is a surgical nurse, and Lisa has her own cleaning business.

SERIOUSLY, CLOWNS ARE CREEPY: The theme at the Hall house is "Brokedown Carnival." A demented clown in the yard holds a machete and a severed head. "He's awful looking," Joanne said. There are pennants, cobwebs, colored lights, carnival music and a circus tent.

CHA CHING: Here, homemade is key. Joanne cut pennants from old yellow ponchos. She sewed the clown's pants, bought his shirt at a thrift store and stuffed a pair of Joe's coveralls for the body. "If you think a little bit before you have to go out and buy things, you'll be okay," Joanne said.

FUN FACT: "My dad always complains every year - 'We're not going to do it this year' - and the next thing you know, it's 'Give me that ladder, Joanne,' " Diane said.

WHY? Family tradition. When the Hall kids were young, Joanne would sew costumes for them, and Joe would take them trick-or-treating. The whole family started working on the elaborate Halloween displays together about 10 years ago. Now, Diane's teenage boys help out, too. "It's just a fun time of year," said Diane, who lives down the street from her parents. "Mom and Dad have made the holidays so special."

356 20th Ave. NE, St. Petersburg

WHO: Jo-An Christie, 61, and Bob Christie, 68.

DAYTIME HAUNT: Jo-An works at Saks Fifth Avenue. Bob retired as a colonel from the Marine Corps.

JOHNNY DEPP IS DREAMY: Arrgh, matey! This year, the Christies bought a 6-foot-tall singing and dancing Johnny Depp pirate for the porch. Other staples include monsters and dressed-up mannequins, loud music, fog and bubble machines and ghosts eating around a dining room table.

CHA CHING: The Christies add to the display bit by bit to keep costs down. "You go to places and look for something on sale," said Jo-An, who sometimes uses gift cards to buy decorations. Adds Bob, "I don't want to get involved. Sometimes, it's better to keep your husband in the dark."

FUN FACT: The Christies, who have won their neighborhood decorating contest before, once thought judges were teenage pranksters prowling on the lawn. "We were across the street, all in costume, and we saw these people in the yard," Jo-An said. "We said, 'Oh no, it's another one of those years.' "

WHY? In Historic Old Northeast St. Petersburg, Halloween is a community celebration; the streets close to make way for hundreds of trick-or-treaters. It's something that the Christies, who have lived in the same house for 35 years, missed out on when their kids were young. "The tone of the neighborhood has changed," Bob said. "Thirty-five years ago, there were very few kids in this neighborhood. Northeast was a neighborhood of older people. Our kids didn't hardly have anybody to play with." Now the display brings joy to the Christies' grandkids and the neighborhood children. "They'll just come and start peering in the windows," Jo-An said. "Kids will say, 'We always come to your house every year.' "

10514 Greencrest Drive, Tampa, in Westchase

WHO: Jeff Rosenblatt, 46.

DAYTIME HAUNT: Real estate agent with Floridian Realty of Tampa Bay, father of two, husband to Sheila Rosenblatt.

SEVERED HEAD, SIDE OF FRIES: Rosenblatt turns his house into a graveyard with 40 headstones behind fresh mounds of dirt. There's a witch head in a globe, fog machines and a dancing skeleton at the end of the driveway. The house special? Rosenblatt's head, peeking through a 6-foot-long dining room table. He'll freak out kids by talking as they walk by.

CHA CHING: Rosenblatt has been accumulating things for years, but he thinks the whole display is worth $1,500. He spends a couple hundred dollars each year on materials and makes many decorations by hand.

FUN FACT: Westchase, a planned community, has tight regulations for homes and yards. "I had somebody stop and say, 'You need to have a permit for putting a fence up.' I said, 'It's not my fence, it's a graveyard.' "

WHY? Rosenblatt started the display before he was married as a way to channel his inner kid. Now, friends have come to expect it. "The other part of it is, I'm Jewish, so we don't decorate for Christmas or Easter. This is my holiday. There's the Griswold Christmas, and this is the Rosenblatt Halloween."

Stephanie Hayes can be reached at 813 269-5303 or shayes@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 26, 2006, 06:21:30]