With Halloween right around the corner and the spooky season creeping up on us, many are getting ready to storm the streets this Friday for a night full of tricks, spirited costumes, and mouth-watering candy. In preparation for this exciting day, we’ve put together a list of the most elaborate—and eerie—spots you need to check out this Halloween.
Vintage Oaks
A couple of minutes away from M-A lies a neighborhood brimming with Halloween spirit. With colorful decorations and unique themes, Vintage Oaks has tons to offer.
On Gilbert Avenue, you can find the Filipek family’s house. A major highlight of Halloween night, the Filipeks have been decorating since they moved into the area. Each year, they have a different theme, commonly a scary twist on a movie or a TV show. While last year’s theme was “SpongeBob ScarePants”, this year’s theme is “Scare Wars.”
The decorations feature large props, including a Millennium Falcon cockpit, an X-wing fighter, and Yoda’s house. The Filipeks build most of their props themselves with the help of Eric Filipek’s dad, Jim Filipek, who flies in from Michigan. “All of [the props] are built from mostly wood scraps. He just built the X-wing fighter wing these last two days, just out of wood. [Jim] uses screws and lots of drills,” Sara Filipek, E. Filipek’s wife, said.
In addition to decorating the front yard, this year, the Filipeks plan on ornamenting the garage and backyard. “You’re standing next to a full-size Jabba the Hutt, the TIE Fighter Wing, and this Falcon. The backyard is a whole other level; It’s the first time we’ve ever used it,” E. Filipek said.
The Filipek’s Halloween tradition is a community and family affair. Their neighbors usually come over and help build props. The couple’s kids also get involved, helping with construction, painting, and acting as characters on Halloween night.
The Filipeks’ favorite part of Halloween is the community it brings together. “It’s the only holiday where random people come to your house and say hi,” E. Filipek said. “We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people. We’ve had people in the last couple of weeks drive an hour and a half just to say hi and look at stuff. There’s no other holiday that allows you to do that.”
As you walk deeper into Vintage Oaks, you’ll see that Casey Wasserstein has taken a completely different approach. Her house on Elmwood Place features an American Idol theme. Trick-or-treaters come by to sing for a panel of judges that decides how much candy the performance deserves.
This tradition began in 2008 when Wasserstein’s child was too young to trick-or-treat. “We were joking, ‘Oh, we should do American Idol. That’d be so funny,’” Wasserstein said. “The first year, people went crazy. They were like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve never had an interactive Halloween before. This is so cool.’”
The next year, she wasn’t able to host American Idol because she was out of town. “People were pissed. They were protesting, and so [my nephew] called us up here in San Francisco. We had him make a poster board sign saying, ‘So sorry, we’ll be back again next year,’” Wasserstein said. Their tradition even included American Idol contestant Maddy Hudson one year.
When asked about her favorite part of Halloween, Wasserstein highlighted the community aspect of the event. “One favorite part is when kids come back from year to year, and seeing them grow up,” she said. “Also, being able to provide something for the community that’s pretty silly and fun. And everybody gets candy no matter what.”
Right off Coleman Avenue lives Joan Haratani. She grew up loving Halloween and aims to bring her love to this community by decorating her house with spooky inflatables and colorful lights. “I especially revved it up during COVID, because I thought it was really unfair that all the kids were stuck at home,” Haratani said. “I spent a day putting candy in Ziploc bags so all [the trick-or-treaters] had to do was grab a bag and go, and then I got notes for the kids in the neighborhood saying, ‘You made our Halloween actually fun.’”
Haratani’s favorite part of Halloween is the idea of celebrating something so spooky and out of the ordinary. “I love the idea that we’re celebrating ghosts and spirits and good and evil. I firmly believe that there’s life and a different dimension where spirits live. I’m Japanese, so I grew up believing in ghosts because we have some of the best ghost stories. And I just think it’s great to celebrate something that’s so bizarre,” she said.
The Willows
As you move away from Vintage Oaks and cross Willow Road, you reach the Willows, a charming neighborhood featuring spooky Halloween decorations.
For Sadbera Rai and her husband on Nova Lane, it all started with a giant spider. “[The decorations] slowly kept increasing more and more and more, and I think this year it’s really a lot, but he would say it’s not enough,” Rai said.
For Rai, Halloween is something different and unique that she had never experienced before moving to the U.S. “Having a day when you go crazy and dress up and kids are running around the streets and trick-or-treat, [is] something that I saw in the movies, and then you’re living it now, it’s really charming and very exotic for people who are not from the U.S.,” Rai said.
Further into the Willows, near Upper Laurel Elementary School, lives Shannon Thoke. Thoke was raised in L.A. with a Halloween-loving family. She brought her Halloween spirit to her current home and has decorated it with the help of her two young daughters.
“I like the fact that the community loves it so much. People stop by and they look, and some people will send us notes, and a lot of the neighborhood will call us a Halloween house,” Thoke said.
Just a few minutes away from the Thoke family house is a house starring a pirate theme. Ralph Miller of Lexington Drive has been dressing up as a pirate for 20 years. His decorations were inspired mostly by Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean and Treasure Island. “They present these pirates as really fun characters, really flamboyant and just fascinating. They’re kind of lovable rogues. You might say they’re villains that you like, so it seemed like a really fun subject with lots of possibilities,” Miller said.
What Miller enjoys about Halloween is its delightful mayhem. “As kids, we could run wild in the streets, collect candy, and we didn’t have parents standing by to make sure everything was okay. It was chaos, but it was fun; we got ourselves candy,” Miller said.
West Menlo Park
On the other side of Menlo Park, right next to La Entrada Middle School, is the Harrison family’s house. The tradition in Stacey Harrison’s house was partially brought on because of her daughter. “My eldest daughter was born Oct. 1. So we kick off the month of October and her birthday. She loves Halloween,” Harrison said.
For Harrison, her favorite aspect of Halloween is the way it brings people together. “Everybody gets out. They enjoy each other’s company. They’ll tell stories or share different traditions that they might do, so that makes it fun,” she said.
On Sherman Avenue, you’ll find Clay Senson’s home. His annual decorating was inspired by his neighbor, Arthur Chait. “When you live across the street from this guy, you can’t help but start,” he said.
Senson loves that Halloween is something everyone can enjoy, no matter the age. “If you’re out here on Halloween night, you’ll see all the people, and it includes kids and adults, from little teeny kids to adults,” Senson said. “They enjoy themselves as well.”
The street that Senson and Chait live on is usually blocked off during Halloween, since there is such a high number of trick-or-treaters. “We know there’s 1600 at least,” Chait said.
Chait has been decorating his house for about 26 years. “My wife and I have a daughter and a son, and we started this project when they were about nine or 10-years-old, and each year I’ve added stuff. I need an intervention,” he said.
Chait makes many of the props featured on his property. Some move on their own, but some are hand-operated. “When we see somebody who’s a teenager or preteen looking at the trash can, or reaching for some candy, we pull a string and [the skeleton] jumps up and screams at them,” Chait said.
Chait’s favorite part of the whole experience is the very young kids who come to his house. “I just did it today for three or four that come by, and I let them fly Casper,” he said.
