'Sycamore's Holiday Spooktacular' takes over Ronkonkoma street
Against a periwinkle sky, on evening's edge, fiery yellow light emanates from the ribcage of a 12-foot skeleton with a pumpkin head. A three-headed dog exhales smoke as its six eyes glow orange. Corn stalks stand in silhouette.
On weekend nights, Sycamore Avenue becomes another of Ronkonkoma's parking lots. Hundreds of people line up to walk through an attraction termed, "Sycamore's Holiday Spooktacular" — two residential front yards disguised as elaborate Halloween displays.
"Somebody messaged me and said, 'I'd love to stop by, but I don't feel like waiting on the Disney line,' " said Richard Bullis, 39, who joined his neighbor and friend Chris Ciccarelli, 51, in opening his own personal Halloween haunt to the public last year. "It is literally a line of people down the block, cars, traffic."
Inviting the public onto private property has not come without complications for Bullis. On a recent October night, several people lifted barriers to let themselves into a then-closed display, Bullis said. The incidents prompted Bullis to make Facebook posts reminding his audience to be respectful of the property and announce that the yard would only be open to guests on weekend nights.
Bullis and Ciccarelli, with their wives Nicole, 37, and Liz, 51, respectively, create annual Halloween and Christmas displays that involve winding pathways, fog machines and hundreds of animatronics. Neither neighbor charges admission, but both accept donations. All proceeds are donated to the Animal Rescue Foundation and Paws of War. This year, Bullis said the donation pool has already surpassed last year's estimated $1,000 total.
Bullis started participating over the past few years, he said, because his 5-year-old son Richie was "addicted to Halloween." Now a part-time employee of Spirit Halloween — partly for the discount — Bullis is addicted to Halloween, too. This year, he started work on his display in late August for an Oct. 4 opening. While he could not estimate a total cost for the project, Bullis said some of the animatronics ranged in cost from $100 to $400 each.
"At first I did it for us, and friends, and family, and then his friends from nursery school, pre-school," said Bullis, whose second born, Anthony, is 3 years old . "It just got to be such a big collection that, you couldn't see it from the street. And kind of just, last year started the whole walk through."
Visitors can walk from the Bullis property over to the Ciccarelli's, where there are a carnival theme and a haunted house with live actors. Other residents on the block have been "very supportive," Ciccarelli said.
"We have the two neighbors across the street, they have teenagers, they help out, they dress up for us and help do the scare, but no complaints, anything like that," said Ciccarelli, whose adult children also help out. "Everybody's involved."
Bullis and Ciccarelli take measures to protect their neighbors' property, said Bob Coppinger, who lives on a nearby corner lot. Ciccarelli puts a cone in front of Coppinger's driveway to make sure visitors do not park there; Bullis walks down the street in the morning and picks up any litter. The pair put out garbage cans in hopes guests will use them.
"It's a shame, they do such a nice thing but people are just very disrespectful," Coppinger said.
Last week, Coppinger watched as a woman threw her childrens' cotton candy cones on his front lawn. Another visitor hit Coppinger's son's car and left.
But Coppinger, 62, said he and the other neighbors enjoy the display, which closes down at a reasonable hour. Often, he and his wife, Joanne, 64, try to help Bullis and Ciccarelli to maintain order by making sure visitors do not touch the animatronics.
"For the most part everybody's respectful and enjoys it," Coppinger said.
Arielle Dollinger joined Newsday as a staff reporter in 2022. Previously, she covered local and national news as a freelancer for The New York Times, Newsday and other outlets.
