Bilbrey dressed as a dumpster fire and passed stickers to the kids that said “Marimont Manor 2023. It’s alive!” The skeletons were dressed as construction workers and the response was small. However, a year has passed, and Bilbrey and Gallienne aren’t the only ones ready for Oct. 31.
“We just had somebody drive by the other day, admired our decorations and said she was glad we were back,” Bilbrey said. “She even referenced the stickers. Her kids had them, and I thought that was pretty cool.”
The couple was eventually able to move back into their home in December. Bilbrey and Gallienne stress that there are a lot of things people don’t think about when a home catches on fire and displaces the family for nine months. The home needed all new electric and most major appliances. Everything was repainted. Anything damaged by smoke and water was replaced. But as soon as they moved back home, they were relieved.
“Being able to be in my house was just something else,” Bilbrey said. “You don’t realize how different it is living somewhere else. I was able to grow pumpkins this year. I got my landscaping back.”
Once they were able to unpack all the old stuff from their rental home, they started planning what they would need to purchase or build for Halloween. Some of their old decorations were no longer made, or there were no comparable options for replacement.
This year, the couple is bringing the Sandworm back out, and they plan on having an animatronic Beetlejuice. With the help of friends and family, they replaced some tombstones in their cemetery and created more zombie babies because any Halloween house needs zombie babies. Gallienne started with painting a pink dollhouse to look like an old gray haunted house. Sometimes building things can be intense.
“You sometimes just got to look at stuff and you figure out, like logistically, how can I do this?” Gallienne said. “Is it something that I can pull off with the time and financial resources that I have available to me.”
The couple does have a wish list for this year. Bilbrey is on the lookout for a replacement mummy as the one they lost couldn’t be replaced. They are also hoping to reenact famous movie scenes from “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost” with skeletons. The house will not be totally and completely decorated until 6 p.m. on Halloween night.
There have still been a few bumps in the road as recently as just a few weeks ago when Hurricane Helene made its way through the area. Gallienne had been working on some painting when the weather started to change.
“We started in September and the yard was looking really great,” Gallienne said. “Then last Thursday and Friday, it started to get windy. So 90% of what we put up, we took down before the remnants of the hurricane came through.”
This meant taking “Pelvis Costello” (12-foot-tall skeleton) down to his knees, so he wouldn’t topple over or blow away. The skeleton dog had to come back in. They have been working since to put their decorations back out. Another issue popped up over the summer when the large sugar maple tree in the front had to be removed. The tree was used for hanging ghosts and ghouls and ziplining them around the yard. A replacement is in the works.
So Marimont Manor will look a little bit different this year, but Bilbrey and Gallienne will be ready by the time trick-or-treat starts on Halloween. The couple still are unsure of what their costumes will be or what the theme for this year is. Bilbrey joked that it might be Marimont Manor “with 100% less fire.”
One thing is for certain and that is that on Nov. 1, all the decorations will be taken down and stored away until it’s time for them to reemerge next year. And until then, Bilbrey and Gallienne will be turning their wheels thinking about what spooky ideas the next year will bring.
MORE DETAILS
The home is located at 3455 Marimont Drive in Dayton in the Hearthstone neighborhood. The home was built in 1928 in a traditional four-square style and measures 1,202 square feet.
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