The Brooklyn woman who owns the most Christmas-decorated house in Dyker Heights has one stipulation before her children can inherit the home: The holiday tradition must continue.
Lucy Spata, 68, has put in her will that her children and grandchildren won’t be able to get the house legally unless they decorate it every year.
“As long as they live there, they have to decorate,” Spata told the Wall Street Journal. “The outside has to be done big.”
Spata began decorating her home in Dyker Heights, an area that’s long been famed for its over-the-top Christmas decorations on locals’ homes, in the 1980s with her late husband Angelo to honor her Christmas-loving mother.
“Christmas came, and there was nothing but darkness,” she said. “No lights, nothing. I looked at my husband and my husband looked at me. We said, ‘We have to do something about this.’ My mother was a very big decorator for Christmas, so we always decorated.”
But their neighbors weren’t all filled with the same holiday spirit. Several Scrooges initially complained about the Spatas’ extravagant display, but it only fueled their festivities.
One year, Spata hired a band to play Christmas carols outside the house.
“The more they complained, the bigger I went,” Spata said. “I guess they got tired of complaining because they all started decorating.”
The neighborhood became so festive that visiting the houses there has become one of the most popular holiday attractions in New York City. A company even began offering bus tours of the area in 2006, now welcoming about 400,000 holiday revelers each year.
Spata’s husband passed away a few years ago, but she’s kept the tradition alive.
“He made me promise I wouldn’t stop,” she said.
Still, despite Spata’s persistent efforts, the lights and magic are dimming.
“There are less lights this year,” Patricia Fischetti-Brimigion told the Journal, admitting that she’s contributed to the dimming by opting out of decorating this year after the deaths of her husband and brother.
She noticed a decline in light-filled cheer happening every holiday season since the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that many people who originally joined in have passed away — or moved away.
However, Spata won’t let the festivities die out without a fight. She discourages any Grinches from moving into the neighborhood.
“When people move in, I say, ‘I hope you’re going to decorate because you know what this block is.’ If you don’t like to decorate, you don’t belong here,” Spata said.
She understands that not everyone can keep up with her decked-out decorations, but Spata simply suggests that newbies do what they can. She even decorated one of her neighbors’ houses for them this year.
“It’s an honor that everyone loves what I do,” Spata told the Sun. “It will continue.”
If any Scrooges do move into the neighborhood, Spata suggests taking a 30-day vacation in December.
But others are still trying to keep the Christmas spirit alive and give Spata some competition.
Last year, Long Island’s king of Christmas, Michael Masone, dethroned the “Dyker Lights” mainstays that’ve held court for decades with his tricked-out winter wonderland.
Masone is even giving Rockefeller Center in Manhattan a run for its money with his nearly half-acre property that’s transformed for the holiday into a dazzling North Pole and interactive amusement park — complete with a Christmas-themed roller coaster and an ice skating rink.
“It looks like Rockefeller Center coming down the block,” Masone told The Post.
