Sutter Student Wins District 4 Home Decorating Contest

Spooktacular displays throughout Santa Clara enthralled the young and old this Halloween. Santa Clara’s annual Halloween Home Decorating Contest did not fail to disappoint.

Surrounded by jack-o-lanterns of all shapes and sizes, the home on Keith Lane won this year’s “Best of the Best” prize. Featuring a pumpkin-headed skeleton taller than a house on one side of the driveway and a haunted pirate ship on the other, there were plenty of scares to be had.

Rika and her 3-year-old son Eita stopped by to see the display in the daytime on Halloween. Eita was dressed like a firefighter and didn’t seem scared. Rika said they would drop by later for trick or treating.

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Meanwhile, the home on Woodhams Road in District 4 was a repeat winner.

“Last year we kind of started thinking what we were going to do. And he was like, let’s just make a big spider web. So that was our inspiration was spiders this year,” said Rachel who follows the lead of her 10-year-old son Damian.

“He’s the creative one and he directs us where things go,” said Rachel.

Damian is a fifth grader at Sutter Elementary School. He rushed home from school on Halloween to put out the finishing touches of his creation and add some extra scares before the trick or treaters arrived.

“It’s fun. Everyone stops by the house,” said Rachel.

A home on Cabrillo Avenue won this year’s District 2 prize.

With automated decorations, a packed graveyard and a giant witch watching over it all, the home was designed to scare.

Raul said his son put up the decorations and it wasn’t so much about the contest as it was about the spirit of the holiday.

“I didn’t even know he was entering. I don’t know if he knows he was entering or not. He just puts it up and they gave him a prize,” said Raul.

Every year, Santa Clara hosts a Halloween home decorating contest and then creates a map of all the entries so that residents can drive by and see all the displays.

Previous winners include last year’s Cruella de Vil house on Atherton Drive and the Dia de Los Muertos display from 2019.

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