Which witch, you may wonder, is taking home the honors in this newspaper’s “Ghoul for the Glory” contest of homes decorated for Halloween?
For the cluster of town newspapers that includes Lincolnwood, Morton Grove, Niles and Norridge, the grand prize goes to a home at 6733 Laporte, Lincolnwood, that took advantage of a spacious front lawn and high columns to create a fantasy scene. Winning homes were selected only from those whose owners entered the contest.
David Janossy and his wife created the scene, which includes skeletons dining at an outdoor table, on the theme of “the party that never ended.” There is also a dubious-looking butler, a graveyard in the front of the scene and a ghost that flies, via a pulley system, from the house to the dining tableau. Janossy’s wife takes neighborhood children on tours of the decorations, and they hope to add to the decor every year.
Our Park Ridge winner is the home of Ken and Julie Kovacin at Cedar and Western. The Park Ridge couple delved into their love of space exploration to recreate the November 1966 launch of the Gemini 12 spaceflight — complete with a model rocket and human-size skeletons in retro shirts, ties and glasses.
“Every year we do a display where we try to involve our skeletons in doing something realistic,” Ken Kovacin explained. “This year, we felt like doing a space theme because my whole family is still doing what we used to do in the 60s: Watching space launches.”
The display in Park Ridge depicts four NASA launch control engineers preparing for the launch of the Gemini 12, a scaled-down, but still very large model of the actual spacecraft, made of cardboard tubes and standing next to the Kovacins’ front porch. When activated, a smoke machine gives the illusion of takeoff.
User Upload Caption: Ken and Julie Kovacin’s Halloween display outside their Park Ridge home depicts the 1966 launch of the Gemini 12 spaceflight.
– Original Credit: Ken and Julie Kovacin
Other top winners include a Morton Grove home at 7824 N. Long, and a Niles home on the 8000 block of Odell.
The Morton Grove home, the brainchild of the Gayford family, resembles a pumpkin farm taken over by skeletons. They pose as farm-stand vendors, and one even drives a tractor, though he has to dodge the gravestones.
In Niles, the home on the 8000 block of Odell has a rooftop-tall structure, with eight tiers of pumpkins in a gargantuan wedding-cake shape, which dominates the scene. Matthew Zalinski, a lighting and technical designer for Chicago-area theaters, used his professional skills to build the massive structure. Each of the pumpkins, which vary in size and mood, is lighted, casting a glow.
Skeletons, dressed in a variety of dramatic and/or old-fashioned costumes, seem to play throughout the scene, which also includes an large alien watching from the stoop to keep viewers on their toes. Brightly-colored lights round out the scene.
– Original Credit: Handout
With the rise in COVID-19 cases this week, families may want to skip some of the usual activities for Halloween. A drive to check out great Halloween decorations, though, can be completely germ-free, and might be a bewitching alternative.
