Taylorsville resident Mont Ashworth’s annual rooftop Halloween display is more than just a few jack-o'-lanterns covered in fake spider webs.
“You really have to see it in person because there’s nothing like it in the whole universe,” he said, proudly.
To make his month-long display happen, Ashworth uses about 25 motors, a big crane, countless steel plates, a mile of wiring that runs throughout his home, and a day full of hard work to get it all started.
“We started with the rooftop display 30 years ago in 1986," Ashworth said in an interview with the Deseret News. "There were maybe five pieces on the west side of the garage, but none of them had movement because I didn’t think about it. The first piece that I thought could move was the cat. So I cut the cat’s tail off and put a motor behind it. I found that a little movement made the whole thing come alive.”
According to his close friend and “right hand man,” Rob Welch, Ashworth wanted the display to be “fun and cute, with nothing scary” for the neighborhood kids to enjoy.
“Way back when in 1986, we had a lot of kids in the neighborhood," Ashworth said. "We would have lots of kids come down our street all the time because that’s where the school bus picked them up. I thought it might be fun to do something different for them during Halloween."
Ashworth put his skills to the test earlier this year when he designed a unique float for the Days of ’47 parade. The float, which was decorated in glitter, had 25 moving pieces — much like his yearly Halloween experience with motors on top of his roof.
“I use the same principle for everything: I use gravity to bring things down and a motor to pull it back up,” he said. “The motors make the spider going up and down the web, the bat flap its wings and Dracula get in and out of his coffin. The smallest piece is the rat’s tongue, (which) moves in and out. I have to point it out to people because it’s so small. It took a lot of work.”
Throughout the years, Ashworth has added and switched out the various pieces in his display. However, because he has now gotten to the point where his whole roof is full, the only way he puts something different on it is if he has found something better to replace it with. Most of the designs for the decorations are Halloween cards that he copied and traced using a projector that were painted by family friend Ginny Comstock.
“People wonder why would someone go to so much trouble for a Halloween display," Welch said. "Well, they just haven’t figured it out yet,”
While the display is up, Ashworth’s street continually lined with cars bumper to bumper each night until they turn the lights off, according to Welch. But the busyness doesn’t stop the families who have made the display a yearly tradition.
“Last October, a gal drove out in her car with her 2-year-old girl. They got out of the car and the woman asked me, 'Is this your house? My mother took me here when I was her age,' while pointing to her little girl. It’s become a family tradition,” Ashworth said.
Although his display includes cartoon cutouts of witches, pumpkins and bats, Ashworth insists that it isn’t just for kids.
“If you’re an adult and this doesn’t make you smile, you’re dead,” he said with a laugh. “It’s trial and error; if something doesn’t work we take it off. But people love it, my family loves it and we’ve had a lot of fun with it. You have to see it to believe it.”
After 30 years of climbing up and down a ladder, both Ashworth and Welch agree that all of the hard work has been worth it because of the community support they’ve felt.
“This is my claim to fame,” Ashworth said. “When I die, all they’re going to have to put on the top line of the obituary is ‘He’s the guy with the Halloween display,’ and people will know who I am.”
If you go …
What: Mont Ashworth’s rooftop Halloween display
Where: 1324 Hawksbill Drive, Taylorsville (There will be a sign on the corner of 1300 West and Hawksbill Drive that directs people onto Hawksbill Drive. His is the first house on the right.)
When: though Oct. 31, beginning at dusk
Email: kadams@deseretnews.com