This Limerick Resident Has Plenty of Skeletons in His Closet, and He’s Proud of All of Them

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skeletons in storage
Image via Alan Smithee.
Pat Baker's skeleton army, awaiting Halloween deployment on his Limerick lawn.

Pat Baker is only so-so about his Limerick home’s annual outdoor Christmas display. Whereas other Montgomery County homeowners festoon their properties with lights, garland, decorations, creches, Santas, and other Yuletide gee-gaws, he tucks an inflatable snowman on his Limerick lot in late November and calls it a day.

He is by no means a Grinch.

He’s may, however, be perhaps plain worn out in December from the massive Halloween display he constructs on-property every October.

Baker has been a Halloween fan since his Lansdale childhood.

“I just loved the feel of it, the fun of visiting neighbors’ houses,” he said, reflecting on All Hallows’ Eves from his youth. “When that time of year rolls around again, it just brings all those memories back.”

As an adult, he started decorating his home’s lawn — first in Collegeville, now in Limerick — with skeletons.

“I’d buy them at Home Depot,” he said. “I had about 85 of them. And then my business ran into trouble, and I had to sell them.

“But we recovered. So, I started investing again.”

Baker now has 104 bony bodies in his collection, some as tall as 12 feet. He’s also got animatronic figures, tombstones, lighting effects, graveyard fencing, plastic pumpkins, and spotlights to see it all by.

Moreover, he doesn’t just haphazardly place these items on the lawn. They’re carefully posed in activities that include climbing trees, peeking in windows, towering over the backyard, hanging from gutters, and clawing their way out of the sod.

Baker estimates it takes him 85 hours to install everything, which he does solo, more from his preference to be precise (he uses a numbered schematic to remember what goes where) than a lack of familial volunteers. The process begins Sept. 30 and finishes around Oct. 30.

“My biggest obstacle isn’t the rain; it isn’t the heat; it’s the wind. I’ve had expensive pieces smashed to the ground because of wind,” he stated.

Even theft isn’t an issue. “I keep some of these pieces in place with 200-pound weights attached. Nobody’s going to steal something that heavy.”

Not only is Baker’s wife okay with the setup, but the neighbors are as well.

“They love it,” he said. “It makes people happy,” he said. “I like things that make people happy.”

Halloween fans across the county are welcome to walk or drive by the Baker boneyard at 20 Sofia Court and gander at the gleeful ghoulishness for themselves. On three upcoming nights — Oct. 28, 30, and 31 — the display will feature an at-will collection opportunity to support the Limerick Fire Department.

A sample of Baker’s neighborhood Halloween extravaganza.

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