It would be nice to say that Brian Webber did it all for the love of Halloween.
But Webber was really thinking about his flowers.
This architectural designer with an eye for theatrics now has a show-stopping “graveyard” in front of the Washington Park house where he lives. The eerie scene shelters a brand-new perennial bed only recently planted with irises, daylilies, echinacea and dianthus.
“That’s kind of the path between our house and the neighbors,” Webber says, mindful of the throng of trick-or-treaters who will descend on his block on Sunday. “Even the postman cuts across the lawn.”
This is why, a couple of months ago, Webber started collecting discarded wood and building materials from nearby alleys — things that were generally cast aside after a renovation. He thought of the old cemetery in Silver Plume where his great-great grandmother, a Scottish immigrant and boarding- house proprietor named Mary Tregonning Lampshire, was buried after her death in 1909.
“It’s just a very unusual cemetery,” Webber says.
To emulate its creepy look, the Colorado native used his found materials and less than $20 worth of decorations from a discount store to fabricate weathered headstones, “a broken-down fence and a gate.”
And while his flower beds are surely secure, Webber concedes that at least some of this spectacle was inspired by his affinity for Halloween.
“It’s really for the kids,” he says. “You can make their experience memorable.”
