While for some, Halloween festivities last just a weekend or the month, Ann Lincoln sees the spooky spectacles she builds outside her South Park Hill home as a yearlong passion.

“It’s kind of become my fulltime hobby. I plan in the cold months and I build a little in the Spring… I start really putting things together in August,” Lincoln said. 

Since starting in 2007, Lincoln’s lawn has sported extensive displays with a yearly theme for the holiday. This year’s theme, ‘A very animated Halloween,’ includes well-known props of cartoons of Scooby Doo, The Nightmare Before Christmas and more adorning her — and now the neighbors’ — homes. 

After initially being unsure of how the community would respond, it’s become a full-blown neighborhood affair.

“Well I thought, I’m doing this, I hope I don’t disturb anybody; there’s sounds, there’s lights, there’s traffic sometimes… We’ve just kind of all fed each others’ interest and joy and the good things we get out of it,” Lincoln said. 

Lincoln’s two next-door neighbors now sport displays of their own that she designed, and their block of Clermont Street between 18th and 19th Avenues has become a hotbed of Halloween activity, which can get hundreds of trick or treaters an hour, Lincoln said. The neighborhood’s interest in Lincoln’s haunting Halloween exhibits extends beyond simple curiosity into sincere recognition, many going out of their way to stop by. 

“People tell me on their fall walks they’ll start including the house so they can come around and see what’s going on,” she said. “The gratitude from the neighbors is something that was completely unexpected.”

Denverites online are now buzzing about the bustling Halloween block, and Lincoln’s neighbor across the street, Seth Bacon, may be partly to blame. Armed with a nailgun, Bacon was busy Wednesday night constructing a home carpentry version of Casa Bonita’s iconic pink walls. The project, albeit a bit out of his wheelhouse, is coming together slowly but surely.

“I’m a computer guy. My wife Emily was the brainchild behind it,” Bacon said in between nailing boards together.

The end result may be the best single Halloween-decorated block in Denver, although many in the Metro area may dispute that. Most importantly for Lincoln though, is the community coming together. 

“We have to tell our kids everyday to not talk to strangers, to not take gifts from strangers, to beware of scary stuff… We have this one night where we’re allowed to turn some of those fears on their head,” Lincoln said. 

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