Cobwebs? Check. Clowns? Check. Headless dolls and hanging body bags? Most certainly.
There’s only one time a year when it’s socially acceptable to showcase skeletons on a pentagram altar or decorate your lawn with gape-mouthed baby dolls.
Halloween.
And Denver’s spooky spirit is on full display this year.
Kevin and I rode around town looking for some of the cutest, coolest, wildest decorated houses around Denver and we weren’t disappointed.
Here’s some of the haunts we hit and, if we missed your favorite ones, don’t worry. Send us a pic and we’ll share it!
Harvey Park
On the corner of S. Utica Street and W. Jewell Avenue lies Lock, Shock, Barrel and of course Mr. Oogie Boogie. The crew from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” belong to Jesse Cordova, an East Denver native who’s lived in Harvey Park for about six years.
Cordova said his wife is really the mastermind behind the décor, though he did a lot of the manual work.
“She has the vision. I just do the decorating,” Cordova laughed.
The pair make a good team, especially since the Cordovas are the reigning champions of the Harvey Park Halloween Home Decorating Contest.
Cordova wasn’t sure if there would be a contest this year, but he said he’s ready. He plans on putting the finishing touches on his house, including some animatronics, as Halloween inches closer.
“I think everyone around the neighborhood likes to come out and see [the decorations] especially with COVID,” Cordova said. “It gives everyone some joy to see cool stuff. It brings the neighborhood together. We’re waiting to see [about the contest] because we’re ready to bring it.”
Speer
“I like to push the envelope and catch people off guard,” said Jessica Halpine, who lives with her boyfriend Jim Norris and their children.
“Halloween is supposed to be terrifying,” she adds. “I don’t want to just do cute witches and pumpkins. I like to be startled and startle other people.”
Startle is a severe understatement.
Every inch of Halpine and Norris’ S. Lincoln Street yard is covered with the strange and unusual. The walkway is lined with resuscitation baby dolls-turned scary decoration, eyeless with gaping mouths, heads pointed toward the sky as if in mid-song. And yes, the longer you stare, the more it feels like they’re staring back.
Mini baby dolls with skulls for heads are scattered around the lawn. And on one side, the dolls work together to dispose of a garbage bag suspiciously shaped like a body. Yikes.
“[Jessica] started with the body and went from there,” Norris said. “She’s an amazing creative person. She has a really great vintage porcelain doll collection, so these are the outcast and fun ones. After we put up the first decorations, somebody saw it and gave her two big crates of more dolls.”
Norris said the pair have always been into oddities and Halloween. It’s the only time of year they decorate their home. But aside from the dolls, Halpine and Norris keeps it interesting year round. They also collects toy clowns and circus memorabilia. She has a favorite cemetery (Knights of Pythias Cemetery in Black Hawk) and her favorite horror movie is 1920s silent film Häxan, which means “witch” in Danish. Norris is part owner of Mutiny Information Café. Enough said.
So, for the two Denverites, decorating is about conversation starters but also really keeping Denver weird.
“This is the time. If it’s the end of the world, then we should have fun,” Norris laughed. “We both believe in shaking normal people out of their complacency. I do it a different way and she does it this way. She keeps all the normal people awake.”
Montclair
If Cameron and Alexandra Tune didn’t live in Montclair on the corner of Oneida Street and E. Severn Place, they wouldn’t decorate for Halloween. In fact, they used to think overly decorated homes were over the top.
“We used to drive in our old neighborhood and we had one house that decorated like crazy and we always drove by and thought, ‘That’s just weird. Why do you do that?’ And now we’re the weird ones,” Cameron Tune said, gesturing at his front yard.
Over the last 12 years, the neighborhood has rubbed off on the Tunes and now their yard is filled with blow-up ghosts, dragons and cats. A skeleton dinosaur protects one side of the house, while a trio of skeleton witches concocts a brew in the middle.
Cameron Tune said his neighbor started the decorating trend 30 years ago, sometimes turning their home into a full-on haunted house.
Now, the collection of homes near Tune’s have become a literal Halloweentown. And, while the spooky season spirit may be the thematic inspiration, it’s camaraderie that fuels this tradition.
Halloween decorating has become a community event, Tune said, where every neighbor is outside talking, planning, helping and just being neighborly.
“I know my neighbors here more than I’ve known my neighbors in 30 years at other houses,” Tune said. “There’s so much going on in our lives that we’re not home, we’re not outside… In October, we’re all out. So, just being outside lets you talk to people and you meet people and you know them and now you’re neighbors, not just people.”
Tune said right now the neighbors have banded together to help another resident put up their decorations because “more than anything else it’s about the community.”
And the community clearly appreciates it. Tune said the area has seen upwards of 2,000 trick or treaters some years. And yes, Tune counts with his son by how much candy they give out.
Tune said last year Halloween was toned down because of the pandemic, but this year Montclair residents expect more foot traffic. He said he’s about 60 percent done with his decorations (the rest will be up the week before Halloween) and the other houses are spookily coming along.
“The [decorating] is growing,” Tune said. “When you see Halloween night, the sheer number of people and all the kids just having a blast you can’t not do it anymore.”
Here are some other Halloween-inspired houses we’ve covered:
Michael Jackson and a skeleton pirate band? Denver’s best Halloween attraction is a free show in a Mar Lee front yard.
A Dia de los Muertos altar sprouts up in Harvey Park. A community ofrenda brought distant relatives together and helped a grieving son find closure.
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Enter at your own peril: From Harvey Park to Montclair, these are some of the best Halloween decorations we've seen around town - Denverite
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