LAKEWOOD, Ohio — Sarah Sherepita’s love for Halloween started at a young age.
“I remember being a little kid trick or treating and looking at the houses,” she said.
As an adult, with her own home on Cannon Avenue in Lakewood, that love only grew.
“Twelve years ago is when we bought the house,” she said. “We did the first Halloween and it was really small.”
Once October hits, Sherepita transforms into "Pirate Lady" and her house transforms into a pirate ship.
“The kids I meet are like, ‘Oh my God, you’re the pirate lady,’” she said. “I want to create that experience for every kid that walks past here and have a memory that they can take with them.”
One of her neighbors, 11-year-old Maxim Parker, said her house is one of his favorite displays.
“Every single year we walk by this house,” he said. “It’s awesome. A 10/10.”
The house is equipped with drunken pirates, treasure, a canoe, a mast, curtains, a plank to walk, foam, bubbles, a candy-shooting-gun, and Sherepita, herself, breathing fire.
“Everything has just been found or given to me,” she said. “I start in September. People ask me how long it takes to build, I have no idea how many hours it’s ever rolling.”
Her passion for the night of the living dead has brought the Lakewood neighborhood alive.
“Every night it’s just like a line of cars,” said neighbor Nicole Ramos. “Every year, we just get one more big thing [to add to their display]”
But there is more than meets the eye to Sherepita’s display. It’s not just about bringing smiles to kids faces throughout northeast Ohio, it’s about helping kids nationwide. Sherepita said with all of the attention on her house, she wanted to do something more, so she placed signs for St. Jude’s October fundraiser in front of her lawn.
“I asked all of the neighbors if we could put a sign in their yard and they were like ‘absolutely, no problem,’” she said.
Each sign has a QR code that you can scan. It will bring you directly to the website to donate.
