‘Scary, tasteful, but never gross’
Karen S. Kim
GLENDALE -- A skeletal corpse with yellowed teeth, ratty blond hair
and a sinister grin scratches its gnarled fingers against the window of a
black, horse-drawn hearse in Bill Williams front yard.
The Glendale resident pulls out all the stops each year to decorate
his home for Halloween, always trying to make it look “scary, tasteful,
but never gross.”
Williams said, “I’ve been doing this kind of thing for years, and
every year it gets a little more elaborate.”
Williams’ yard at 812 Green St. has been transformed into an
old-fashioned graveyard.
Corpses spill out of an ornamented hearse, a skeleton princess --
dressed all in white -- floats back and forth in Williams’ picture
window, a sideyard is covered with tombstones, and corpses continually
attempt to claw their way out of a tall, white mausoleum in front of the
house.
And the ghouls are motorized, so they move eerily in the glow of stage
lighting.
“I just have this passion for it,” said Williams, 38. “I’ve been into
doing Halloween things since I was a kid.”
Williams, who works for a Burbank graphics company, built many of the
props in his yard himself, including the hearse and the mausoleum.
Williams’ house is just one of 37 houses and businesses in Glendale
that were recognized this year by the Committee for a Clean and Beautiful
Glendale.
“We want to encourage residents to decorate their houses and by doing
so, they kind of feel a part of that whole neighborhood feeling, and it
gets them involved,” said Elena Magardomyan, public education specialist
for the city’s Neighborhood Services Department.
The department runs the recognition program.
The top houses were filmed by the department and will appear for one
week on Charter Communications channel 6 starting Monday, every day at 8
a.m., and at 8 p.m. Monday, Thursday and Sunday.
HALLOWEEN HOUSES
1015 Gesell St.
3605 Roselawn Ave.
3601 2nd Ave.
3917 Ferntree St.
510 Whiting Woods Road
670 Glenmore Blvd.
2445 Sleepy Hollow Drive
811 Kenneth Road
429 W. Wilson Ave.
435 Ivy St.
537 Concord St.
430 W. Wilson Ave.
425 W. Wilson Ave.
440 W. Wilson Ave.
458 W. Wilson Ave.
716 South St.
1027 Glenwood Road
1254 Graynold Ave.
1616 Grandview Ave.
1610 Grandview Ave.
1166 Irving Ave.
1523 Kenneth Road
647 Palm Drive
334 Allen Ave.
3310 Honolulu Ave.
3794 Cloud Ave.
3068 Sycamore Ave.
1718 Verdugo Road
3775 El Lado Drive
3872 Cederbend Drive
3944 El Lado Drive
3839 El Lado Drive
1400 Royal Blvd.
1510 El Rito Drive Twigs & Things, 2266 Honolulu Ave.
Critters, 2277 Honolulu Ave.
Crescenta Valley Flower Mart, 2900 Foothill Blvd.