Holiday Holdout : Lights out: For 35 years, residents on Teloma Drive have made their block the most brightly decorated in the county. But the man who built the street refuses to participate in the annual tradition.

The man who literally built the street that has become the county’s most brightly decorated neighborhood block during the Christmas season is the only resident on his block who refuses to decorate his house.

But 81-year-old Al Faoro insists he is not the Grinch of Ventura’s Candy Cane Lane.

“I used to put some lights out when they first started,” Faoro says. “Then I just decided I didn’t want to do it anymore. Now, of course, I’m 81 and I have arthritis. It’s just too much for me.”

While some of Faoro’s neighbors on Ventura’s Teloma Drive say they’re puzzled at his refusal to participate in what for many of them has become the premier neighborhood event of the year, they insist they have no ill feelings toward him.

Long ago, the neighbors say, it became clear that Faoro and his wife, Jean, were not going to take part in what one resident calls “a two-week-long block party.” At this time of year, the residents of Candy Cane Lane are really too busy to worry about one holdout on their block.

Featuring giant candy canes, outsized Christmas cards, Santa’s sleighs and Nativity scenes, the Candy Cane Lane light show will begin next Sunday and conclude on Christmas night. For two weeks, the lights will blaze on Teloma Drive from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

It will be the 35th time the residents of the comfortably middle-class street just east of Ventura College have entertained long lines of visitors from as far as 100 miles away. The event, which was first staged in 1955, has been canceled only once, in 1973, when the lights were turned off because of the energy crisis.

Ironically, nearly four decades ago Faoro, who lives at 166 Teloma, was the prime developer of the block between Telegraph and Loma Vista roads that has become a living Christmas card during the holiday season.

Faoro, a retired Shell Oil Co. engineer who took up home building as a sideline, says he has nothing personal against the neighborhood project. It simply isn’t for him.

“Let the others do it if they want to,” he said. “It’s perfectly all right with me.”

As usual, the Faoros did not attend a recent meeting of residents at the house of Candy Cane Lane residents Bob and Carol Cole to plan and assign duties for this year’s show.

“They’re always invited, but I can’t recall that they’ve ever attended,” said Carol Cole, who has lived on Teloma for 16 years.

Like most of her neighbors, Cole says she doesn’t resent the Faoros for not taking part.

“There’s no hostility toward them at all. Whatever anybody feels like doing is OK with the rest of us. A few years ago, several people didn’t decorate because they were ill. We all understood.

“In fact, one year the vote was 50-50 as to whether we’d have Candy Cane Lane at all. But then we decided to go ahead with it, and everybody pitched in.”

Cole said that besides the Faoros, another resident of the street, a widow, does not feel up to decorating, so Glenn Gooss of 57 Teloma usually decorates her house for her.

“We don’t pressure anybody,” said Gooss, who was among Candy Cane Lane’s original organizers. “A project like this involves some expense and work, and it makes you stick pretty close to home during the holidays, but we feel it’s worth it.”

Another of Candy Cane Lane’s residents, Ruby Montgomery, who lives next door to the Faoros at 174 Teloma, described Faoro as “a very easygoing, delightful man” and joined her neighbors in saying she sees nothing wrong with his refusal to decorate his house.

In fact, Montgomery, whose husband died early last year, has some reservations of her own about being part of the neighborhood effort this year.

Last Christmas, Montgomery decorated her house with the help of her son, who also lives in Ventura. But this year, she says that she, too, may leave her house dark.

“I’m sure the other people won’t resent it,” she said.

The age of many of Candy Cane Lane’s residents is a growing factor in determining whether more holiday lights will be dimmed on the street in future years. In fact, most of the original residents who still live on the street are now in their 70s or 80s.

“When you get as old as I am, it’s a burden,” said Marion E. Smith, 78, of 126 Teloma. “Still, I’m going to put the manger scene and the big cross on my front lawn as usual.”

The 28 houses on Candy Cane Lane don’t change hands often, but when they do, Smith and his wife, Virginia, are among those who are glad to see younger people move in.

For instance, Jeff and Lisa Schmoll, both 30, bought their home at 84 Teloma in 1988.

“Candy Cane Lane was one of the main reasons we moved here,” said Jeff Schmoll, a Texaco Inc. engineer. “My wife and I have come down this street and enjoyed all the lights for years. Now we’re a part of it.”

Al Faoro says he enjoys the lights as much as anybody--those put up by the newer residents as well as the old-timers on the street.

But when he talks about Teloma he obviously prefers to recall the time when he helped bring the street into existence.

“I’m the one who thought of the name, you know--it combines Telegraph and Loma Vista,” he said. “And one reason it’s so nice here is because I gave the houses wide lots--they’re 70 feet wide.”

Even though he doesn’t light up his house for Christmas, Faoro notes, he did help decorate the neighborhood in another way.

“This area used to be a lemon grove, you know. I made a point of leaving lemon trees in the back yard of every house I built.”