It’s a Winner Wonderland on N. Hollywood Block

George Herczak used simple strings of lights as his Christmas decorations 20 years ago. Now he leads his North Hollywood neighbors in creating a holiday display reminiscent of Disneyland.

A Christmas Eve scene is created with animated figures and a 10-minute audio show in three open-front rooms built out from Herczak’s house--parents shown in one room, children in the next, and Santa making his delivery in the third.

A couple of doors down, mannequins ice-skate under a 55-foot Christmas tree decorated with 430 hand-painted lights. And, across the street, a 15-piece orchestra of elves, clad in red velvet robes, plays holiday tunes.

In the same block, a front yard has been turned into a North Pole workshop, filled with toys and stuffed animals dancing to Christmas carols. A remote telephone hookup powered by a nine-volt battery allows parents to alert the live Santa Claus there to the names of the children who come to visit.

Herczak and his neighbors figure that $436,000 worth of donated material and labor--and a little cash--have gone into the holiday transformation of the 8100 block of Rhodes Avenue.

Worked All Year

They began preparing the displays in January, under the leadership of Herczak, 53, who works in the paint department at the General Motors plant in Van Nuys. The lights were switched on Dec. 6, and will stay on each evening through Jan. 6, drawing thousands of spectators.

Herczak calls it a “celebration of life.” He said he became interested in Christmas displays after he broke his neck when he was 32, and “I could have died or become a quadriplegic. But I survived.”

His wife, Barbara, said they spent only $50 on decorations at first, but that the displays at their ranch-style home became more elaborate each year. “The work is tremendous, but it makes my husband happy,” she said.

This was the first time, however, that the Herczaks got most of the neighborhood into the act. Eight other homes have major displays.

What they call the Rhodes Avenue Committee raised $3,500 recycling newspapers and aluminum cans to help pay electricity bills, according to Herczak’s nephew, Steven Thornock. The 28-year-old Canyon Country resident has assisted in the holiday project for 10 years, as have a carpenter from Reseda and friends from Lake Elizabeth and Northridge.

‘Adequate Manpower’

Since his uncle has “adequate manpower, he only has to worry about materials,” Thornock said.

This year, Herczak got mannequins from a J. C. Penney department store. Used wood was donated by a lumber yard. A glass company gave crates, which, when disassembled, furnished the wood for fences at the front yards of all the display houses.

Neighbor Bob Howick, an electrical engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, was responsible for the lighting. Charles Craft, another resident of the block who owns a roofing company, waterproofed the displays.

“Many displays took over six months to build. We had weekly work parties throughout the year, and, in a way, we became trash scavengers,” Herczak said.

“Snow” was created on the front yards by spraying plaster on used carpet.

Barbara Herczak and her friends became experts in light bulbs, hand-painting 5,000 of them for the block’s displays, including the 430 for the big tree.

The lights go on at 6:30 each evening and are not turned off until the last visitor leaves.

The neighbors have done no advertising, but word of mouth has caused people from miles away to visit Rhodes Avenue--much as they do the better-known Candy Cane Lane area of Woodland Hills. Some simply drive through, but most stop and walk by the animated displays.

Norine Stock of Reseda, a 58-year-old store manager, wound up on the block after volunteering to take her four grandchildren, ages 3 to 10, to see Santa. They went first to a Van Nuys Christmas tree lot, but Santa had left.

“A stranger told us that Santa was here, but this is much more than I expected to find,” she said. “I plan to return next year.”