Warning: If you’re easily creeped out, you may want to stop reading now…
However, if you love all of the ghoulish trappings of Halloween and thrive on creepy urban legends (in the form of whispers from the neighborhood children), you won’t want to miss the house on Pine Lakes Drive in Plano. For the past seven years the kids in the neighborhood have called it “The Spooky House.“ Some love it, some still hide behind their mama’s skirt when they pass by.
When it comes to Halloween spirit and a penchant for extreme home decorating, Tony Giles is a bit obsessed. Tony has transformed his home into the Pine Lakes Halloween haunted house every October since 2009. His face literally lights up when speaking about horror films and their sinister characters or about the work that goes into his “set” each year.
Tony recalled, “When I was growing up, there was this house in my neighborhood that went all out at Halloween, and I absolutely loved it and couldn’t wait to see it each year. I like knowing that the kids in my neighborhood will always remember my spooky house.”
Every evening in the month leading up to Halloween, terrifying characters of horror seem to come alive with eerie music, special effects, lighting and ominous fog at the house on Pine Lakes Drive. It’s pretty awesome to witness. Some kids are brave enough to reach out and touch the hauntingly life-like figures, some aren’t. It’s rumored the characters come alive at night, but that’s just kids talking…right?
Tony says it’s been an intensive labor of love for his entire family to fulfill his childhood dream (or nightmare, as it were) of creating life-long Halloween memories for the kids in his neighborhood, but it’s time to say one final and frightful good night. This will be the last year for The Spooky House on Pine Lakes Drive, and Tony says it will be the best year yet.
Halloween weekend visitors (last year, he counted more than 3,000 in a single night) will line the street all along the block and make their way through the skull-encrusted, creaky gate on a journey past the yard of horrors and through the “Tunnel of Terror” where they’ll finally mutter “trick or treat” hoping the trek was worth it. Fans say it is, but you’ll have to go and see for yourself.
Visitors are welcome to drive or walk by 705 Pine Lakes Drive in Plano anytime through Oct. 31. The walk-through Tunnel of Terror goes up on Oct. 29, with trick-or-treating on Oct. 31 from sundown to about 10 p.m. rain or shine. Plano Police Department will be on hand Oct. 31 to make sure everything goes smoothly.
Pine Lakes Halloween Haunted House > [codepeople-post-map]