Also please check out “Good Mourning Tis of Thee,” a huge conceptual group exhibition curated by Alyssa Taylor Wendt and Sean Gaulager at Co-Lab Projects’ DEMO Gallery with over 65 artists in 6000 square feet. The show and performances have been extended to Nov. 25th and the show addresses themes of death, grief and transformation. I can send you a press release if you like, contact me via email below!
10 Spooky (and Stylish!) Houses That Are Decorated for Halloween
We’re impressed, inspired, and truly a little scared.
By Alyssa Longobucco Published: Sep 29, 2023
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Jenna Sue Design
There are people who love Halloween, and then there are people who love Halloween. Those in the latter group aren’t satisfied with a few carved pumpkins or some corn stalks. No, they need to bring the thrills and chills, with spooky accents that pay tribute to some of the season’s most screamworthy mascots, like skeletons, ghosts, witches, and more. And here’s the good news: You don’t need to live in an haunted 1800s Victorian with creaky floors and a few spiritual inhabitants to dress your house to the nines for Halloween. These epic houses that are decorated for Halloween make even the most charming white picketed fence abode seem dark and menacing to trick-or-treaters and guests alike.
These scary-good Halloween houses are fun to visit, but if you’re not close enough for that you can draw inspiration from them for your own outdoor decor. Focus on accents that can transition from day to night, like ghosts that glow in the dark or a witch’s cauldron that bubbles and brews after the sun goes down. You can even consider making simpler spooky swaps, like switching out your porch lights for bulbs that burn orange or black. Craft store items like cheesecloth (left white or dyed a menacing black) can also go a long way toward making your very own crypt as creepy as can be.
In the meantime, scroll these truly impressive houses that are decorated for Halloween if you dare. We found ghoulish homes far and wide, from Manhattan brownstones to suburban neighborhoods. Happy haunting!
Looking for even more spooky inspiration? Listen to our haunted house podcast, Dark House, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Austin
Mexic-Arte Museum
Love to Death: Community Altars
September 15 – November 26, 2017
Artists, community groups, and individuals are invited to create commemorative altars dedicated to the lives of influential figures who served the Austin community, figures from popular culture, and loved ones who have passed.
Dallas
The Modern
Haunt
September 23 – November 26, 2017
Senior curator of this exhibition, Andrea Karnes, says, “The imagery in Haunt is both beautiful and horrific, but moreover, the series magnifies the strangeness of the existence of such places, where fantasies are manifested. People desire, and will pay for, the sensation of fear, and that is a surprising and provocative revelation that comes out in these works.” Misty Keasler created this series of photographs using haunted houses as her muse which provides a spooky perspective into the world of “paid-for-chills.”
Dallas Museum of Art
All the Eternal Love I have for Pumpkins
October 1 – February 25, 2018
Yayoi Kusama’s work is to be enjoyed all year round, so it would be horrifying if you missed out on the Dallas Museum of Art’s recent acquisition — on view now until February 2018. Plus, there are pumpkins galore, which is completely in theme for the season.
Houston
Museum of Funeral History
Ongoing
What better way to celebrate the month of death-inspired antics than by visiting the museum dedicated to the rites of deathly passage? Listed in Atlas Obscura, this collection inspires you to take some time out (before time runs out) to learn about the funerals of national leaders, or to explore the traditions of Día de los Muertos via a full-scale model home.
ENCORE: Haunting the ‘hood: Lake Ridge couple’s over-the-top Halloween decorations draw a crowd
A haunted gothic mansion begins to appear on Hedges Run in August only to disappear in November. Its two-story façade completely covers the front of Paul and Lynn Schmitz’s Lake Ridge home.
Skeletons dance through the upstairs windows, and a grim reaper wielding his scythe dashes across the ground floor. Skeletons scale the walls, and a haunted bride is grabbed by ghostly arms that appear to emerge from the ground.
In the front yard, stone pillars and a gate stand at the entrance to a cemetery where claps of thunder and flashes of lightning are accompanied by creepy music. The mansion glows in neon green, and on some nights, fog creeps along the ground. There can be no wind.
“Something like this, I’ve always dreamed about. It became a bucket-list thing,” said homeowner Paul Schmitz, creator of the spooky scene.
Paul Schmitz has always loved Halloween. When he was 10 and other kids were begging for store-bought costumes, he made his own. As an adult, he and his wife have elaborately decorated the inside of their home for Halloween for the last 30 years, often throwing parties to the delight of their now grown sons, John, 28, and Matt, 30.
“They loved it, and they still love it,” said Lynn Schmitz.
“I’ve always loved Halloween. It’s been my favorite holiday,” Paul Schmitz said.
While he did a little outdoor decorating over the years, usually featuring a small cemetery, he concentrated on the inside. But that changed once he had a little more time.
“I had always planned that when I retired, I was going to make the best Halloween display,” Paul Schmitz said.
After retiring from his job as an IT professional in 2018, he created a three-dimensional mock-up of what he wanted his gothic mansion to look like. The goal was something impressive that he could add to each year.
Through the grapevine, Facebook and a friend of a friend, he found master carpenter “Uncle Larry,” as he calls him, to build it. Uncle Larry developed his expertise by helping his church create elaborate displays.
“It took about two or three conversations with him until he understood I was completely serious about this,” Paul Schmitz said.
“This is a big undertaking. It has to go up and withstand some weather. You want to design something strong, but you’ve got to be able to put it up and take it down,” Paul Schmitz said.
It took them a year to come up with the design.
The frame is made of two-by-fours and plywood. The 4-by-6-foot panels are modular and link together.
In August 2019, the Schmitzes put it up for the first time. It was a big hit with the trick-or-treaters. So much so, they had a bottleneck of kids coming to the front door on Halloween.
After that, they changed the layout to direct kids first through the front yard cemetery and then in front of the mansion toward an exit along the side of the house, where they would receive their treats from the “Boo Crew,” a group of about 25 friends who fly in, stay in Airbnbs and dress in costumes. They also attend the Schmitzes’ Halloween party a day or two ahead of time.
The Schmitzes didn’t put up the mansion in 2020 due to COVID but brought it back in 2021 and again this year.
And they are expecting quite the crowd – maybe as many as 3,000 visitors. In past years, traffic along Hedges Run would come to a standstill as parents dropped off kids and returned to pick them up or park elsewhere. They have a neighbor who directs traffic.
Some kids get frightened, but most don’t.
Paul Schmitz sets a theme every year. Last year, it was zombies. This year it is an insane asylum, and he added different props to support it.
The dancing skeletons and the Grim Reaper appear in the windows, thanks to monitors playing videos. The dancing skeletons videos are synced so it appears they are dancing from one room to another.
“When I designed this, it was always going to be that my windows would be monitors,” he said, using the Haunted Mansion in Disneyworld as his muse. “I wanted to give it that kind of a feel, that the house and the occupants are alive and aware and looking and roaming.”
“I really do love it. With something like this, you have to have a huge passion for it,” Paul Schmitz said.
He said he started an investment account when he was 30 and put in $100 a month. “After 28 years, it was quite a bundle and will pay for many Halloweens,” he said. “It’s the equivalent of adding a room addition to your house. It’s not something you can do on a whim. It takes financial planning too.”
And it funds his passion.
“I love [the display,]” Lynn Schmitz said. “It makes him so happy.”
When Halloween is over, the panels are disassembled and stacked in the garage. Their numerous props are stored in the attic.
The corner of Hedges Run and Parliament Drive may be the Schmitzes’ yard, but the Halloween decorations extend beyond the corner, courtesy of their neighbor, Chris Usrey, who extends his props from in front of his house to the corner.
“This corner rocks the neighborhood,” Paul Schmitz said.
Usrey has been putting up decorations for 20 years, almost 10 years at his Parliament Drive home.
“It grows every year,” Usrey said. “And I move things around every year, so it never looks the same.”
Usrey is a retired Marine who says his Halloween decorations are one of his hobbies.
This year he added two 12-foot skeletons whose eyes seem to follow passersby. He has lots of inflatables, ghosts, monsters and a skeleton, including one driving a hearse, and 27 animatronics, just to name just a few.
“Paul’s decorations are really unique, a little darker, and mine are a little more carnivalistic,” Usrey said. “I think they support each other. We work together to blend them.”
