The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Area residents annually make massive Halloween displays
“I had three people already stop as the drove by. I even met a neighbor for the first time that way.” — Shannon Heath
Never mind the Great Pumpkin.
Just take a drive around Lake County and you’re sure to see some elaborate Halloween displays right in your own back yard.
Take Shannon Heath’s front yard on South Ridge Road in Madison Township, for example.
It’s laid out with everything from ghosts of varying sizes, witches stirring brew and all manner of skeletons, doing what they do.
Heath said Halloween is one of her and her husband, Phillip’s, most treasured holidays. In fact, they love it so much, that’s
when they got married 21 years ago.
“This is one of our favorite holidays,” she said. “That’s why we were married on Halloween.”
It’s hard to miss the Heaths’ display, which incorporates about 50 pieces ranging from illuminated inflatables like jack-o’-lanterns, a witch and a big, black cat with a hat. Then there are ghosts in trees, tombstones and a number of automated characters that move, talk, moan and play music on cue.
“Some of them are our original props from our wedding,” Heath said, adding that winds have claimed some of them over the years. “And it’s, like, every time you put it up, you’ve gotta redo everything often because the wind really does some havoc on everything.”
She said it takes her about a month to set up the display and that this year is its Madison Township debut, as they just moved from the Painesville Township Park area.
Heath said her favorite pieces are the witches. She said her favorite witch might be the one dressed as a bride singing — what else? Billy Idol’s “White Wedding.” And her ensemble wouldn’t be complete without a pair of Sonnyand-Cher-inspired skeletons singing “I got You, Babe.”
Her husband’s favorites are the skeletons; and her 6-year-old son, Charles, likes Michael, the creepy character seated on a hay bale, along with the big, hanging ghost on one of their front yard’s more prominent trees.
Heath said being on a busy street like South Ridge Road, she’s not sure how many trick-or-treaters her house will serve come Halloween. But regardless of the volume of treats her family hands out on Oct. 31, she said their new neighborhood seems to be enjoying the show.
“I had three people already stop as the drove by,” she said. “I even met a neighbor for the first time that way.”
On the topic of neighbors, those around one Grand River Village home have gotten to know, over the last two decades, that their neighborhood plays host to one of Lake County’s most massive Halloween displays, thanks to one late resident’s dedication and affinity for the kind of excitement only children impart.
According to her family, Geo Ann Meister, who passed away Oct. 17, loved Halloween so much she made it her mission every year to put on a show like no other for area families and children to enjoy.
As a tribute to Geo Ann, husband, Mike, and three children: Derek, Melissa and Nick, got together this year to assemble the display in her honor.
“She had three kids,” Derek said. “And all three kids had been in the military.
When we would deploy, she’d watch our houses. So that gave her more places to get more (Halloween) stuff.”
He said his mom also would make use of Internet resources, like eBay, which she’d begin perusing as early as March for new and interesting Halloween finds.
“That was her secret,” he said.
Over the years, the Meister household’s Halloween ensemble grew so popular that people who as kids came to see it, began bringing their own youngsters.
And that’s why she did it: the kids, Mike Meister said.
“We’d be out here putting all this stuff out and I’d say: ‘Why are we doing this?’ And she’s say ‘For the kids!’ She just loved children and she loved Halloween and she wanted to make sure everybody had a good time,” he said.
He added that Geo Ann got her start decorating nearly 50 years ago, when they lived in an apartment in Cincinnati and the building had a Christmas-decoration contest.
“We lived in this thirdfloor apartment and the building management decided to give a whopping $25 gift certificate to whichever tenant had the best Christmas decorations. So she did up the door and the balcony and we won,” Mike said. “That was about 47 years ago and, somewhere along the line, she picked up the bug for Halloween.”
Derek said she liked the social aspect of Halloween.
“It’s not like the other holidays,” he said. “At Christmas, Thanksgiving, et. cetera, people tend to spend time together with their families more. But Halloween is more social. People go out into the neighborhood.”
And Derek, Melissa and Mike all agreed their mother was certainly a social being.
“Oh, she’d have the neighbors over, like, a Saturday or two before Halloween for, like, a preview,’ Mike said. “It was like a little block party. She loved to be around people.” Melissa concurred. “This is the best way to
honor her,” she said. “This is her tradition and it’s the best way to make sure her memory lives on. I mean, she was just tickled pink when people would stop by and just enjoy everything with their kids. She just loved to see them smile.”
Derek agreed, adding that it was the hands-on nature of the display she set up in the garage each year of which she was most proud. Filled with motion-activated, mechanical Halloween oddities of all shapes, sized and personalities, it was, for Geo Ann, the crown jewel of the layout, he said.
“She really wanted it to be an interactive thing for the kids and the parents, too,” he said. “In fact, it was (so much so), that kids would often come in, start trying everything out and forget their candy — leave without it.”
For anyone familiar with most kids’ missions on Halloween, that speaks volumes.
“I think, growing up in the time we did, you’d go into department stores and see all these beautiful, shiny displays,” Mike said. “But you were always admonished not to touch the stuff. So, I think this was her way to kind of show up that attitude.”
And show it up, she did, as Derek described.
“It’s funny because, we’ll get parents in here who will be telling their kids ‘Don’t touch!’ And we have to correct them,” he said. “We’ll be like: ‘No. They’re supposed to touch!”
Even though Geo Ann, who would have been 69 next month and is known around the area as “the Halloween Lady,” won’t be there in person this year to watch all the wonder her collection inspires, Derek, Melissa and Mike said they have no doubt that she’ll be there in spirit and that the memories she helped make will live on throughout the community.
“We were sitting around the other day, trying to think of a one-word description for her,” Mike said. “And I thought it would be the word energy, because
she always had to be going.”
The display at the Meister’s house will be open for visitors to view through 9:30 p.m. Oct. 31.
For those craving another unique kind of energy in their Halloween travels, there’s a house about a 20-minute drive from the Meisters’ display that takes the holiday’s excitement to a whole different level, thanks to an Eastlake resident who creates animatronic displays for a living.
John Merk has been building animated, robotic creations for businesses and venues, including restaurants, candy stores, museums and car washes, along with private residences, over the last three decades.
Some of his handiwork can be seen in places like b.a. Sweetie Candy Co. in Brook Park, Scene 75 Entertainment Center in Brunswick and even a haunted house in Israel.
“I do creatures and characters for museums, amusement parks... I’ve done displays for car washes, people’s homes,” he said. “Every job is new, so I feel like every job’s a new career.”
Closer to home — in his own driveway at 33987 Iris Lane in Eastlake — Merk put together a 13-foot, pneumatically controlled, animated creature that’s certain to make an impression on anyone who dares to go see it.
Merk said he put up the display last about 10 years ago. But it got too big for the neighborhood after area media outlets began covering it.
“Yeah, after the secondto-last time I did it, the cops came and knocked on my door and said they weren’t sure if I could keep doing it,” he said, adding that they said they were worried about crowd control. “I asked them: ‘Well, isn’t that your guys’ job?’ They said ‘Yeah, if you hire us.” So I said “OK.”
That was about 10 years ago, he said, and it was the last time he set up his mechanical monster.
But now that his 10-yearold daughter, Aubry, is old enough to appreciate a wellbuilt, mechanical monster like the kind he creates, he said he wanted to out on one last show so she could see it in action.
“I did it 11 years ago, before my daughter was born,” he said, adding that people enjoyed it so much they started making donations. “We actually wound up raising $6,000 for the (National Multiple Sclerosis Society).”
From there, his creations made appearances at Classic Park the following year, then to a venue in Mentor off Heisley Road, he said.
Besides the 13-foot creature, Merk put together some other creepy sights, like an animated ghost in his front door, some spooky projections on one of his front windows and numerous other special effects.
For those interested in seeing Merk’s projects come to life, he’ll be presenting them to the public from around dusk until “whenever the cops tell me to stop” on Oct. 30 and 31.