It’s a newly built house tapered like a corn crib, with a crooked floor plan and a haunted look that turns heads of those who travel on Heartwood Road.
Tom Weaver who built the place couldn’t be more pleased.
“They’re stopping to look at it,” he said.
Weaver, 39, has created a masterpiece of Halloween lawn décor. It’s a haunted house that takes up his front yard. It’s so big it obscures his Jubilee in the Highland Park section of Levittown.
“This year I wanted to go big, so big it would almost block out my house,” he said.
It’s rendered in pallet wood and weathered slats from stockade fence.
“I wanted it to look like an old chicken coop,” he said. “You know, say you’re walking in the woods in the middle of nowhere and you come upon an old wooden shack house, abandoned maybe 100 or 150 years old. And, yeah, I was definitely going for creepy.”
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With a background in construction (currently he works as a topman installing municipal water lines), Weaver didn’t use blueprints or sketched plans.
“All of this,” he said, standing with his cordless drill, “came out of my imagination, you know, just pure imagination. I guess it’s just an artistic ability I’ve always had, and that I developed while building houses. Nothing here’s supposed to look straight, nothing’s to look trim. I wanted it to have the look of something that looks like it’s falling down.”
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But it’s not falling down. He grabs a beam and shakes hard. Sturdy as steel.
Some artists work in palettes of oils and acrylics.
“This is me working in pallets and fencing,” he said, adding, “And hundreds and hundreds of screws. But you know, I don’t mind being the guy who does things a little off the wall, but still kinda cool.”
Even with its sprawling length, the house is scaled to little ones who will be trick-or-treating. That’s who it’s for, really.
“I do this for the kids in the neighborhood, give them some good memories,” he said.
The kids will enter one end, proceed to the front door of his house, get their treats, and exit the other end. Along the way there will be strobe lights, stage fog, noises and other stuff suitable for All Hallows Eve.
“I’ll have a graveyard out there, some pumpkin things, noises, maybe a witch here, and animatronics,” he said. “I got a bunch of skeletons, but I haven’t really decided on the scenes I want until I go through all the decorations, and I’ll probably be getting more."
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The haunted house had its beginnings ten years ago when Weaver decided to put a smaller version, maybe a quarter the size, in his yard. It was a hit. Two years ago, he decided to build another, and doubled its size. It was a bigger hit.
“The last time he did this I musta spent a hundred bucks on candy, we had so many kids coming up,” said Weaver’s father, Garth.
He looked at his son’s handiwork.
“Maybe he can turn this into Santa’s Workshop for Christmas,” he said.
“Then maybe firewood,” he said.
“No,” he said. “Next year I might do something, or just scrap all of it. This could be my last one.”
“OK,” said his father, “just as long as I get all my grass back.”
Columnist JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.