3,000 glittering pumpkins, 1 lawn

Imagine literally thousands of hand-carved pumpkins glittering at you from 1 Victorian home— and not just flickering, but choreographed and dancing.

The Griffith Pumpkin House is a unique sparkling spectacle you can only catch for a few days of the year. That’s because because the pumpkins— all 3,000+ of them— are live, hand-carved creations. Every year is unique, and more and more dazzling.

Jack-o-lanterns spill into the yard and sidewalk. Some are perched on the scaffolding of the roof, or even stacked on specially built shelves to make use of every bit of space on the small plot. Flickering critter carvings stare at you from a wooden Noah’s Ark. One massive wall of pumpkins is even set to blink in a choreographed show that moves along with background music.

The house is the centerpiece of C-K Autumnfest, with plenty more to do, like a tractor show, old-fashioned bake-off, arts and crafts show and more.

It all started in 1978 with only a few pumpkins on the porch. But every year, more volunteers came with their carving skills, so the family added more and more pumpkins. Now, 100s of volunteers help bring this fall tradition to life.

The carving usually begins the last week of October, and at its peak the volunteers can carve out more than 500 pumpkins a day.

The best part? The generations of families who grew up with the Pumpkin House as a kid, who are now passing this tradition on to their own children.

Photo credit to Steven Wayne Rotsch.