I hear there’s a monster party tonight at 13 Dead End Drive. That’s the address of this massive old Victorian haunt created by Ty Keltner over the course of nine months. It features a large mansion with surrounding grounds populated by hundreds of your favorite Halloween monsters. Sitting on a whopping 24 large gray baseplates, the model’s footprint is 7 ½ feet by 5 feet – that is just shy of 40 square feet of Lego, with somewhere between 50 and 100 thousand bricks, definitely making this the biggest LEGO Halloween party we’re invited to this year!

The centerpiece is a huge Victorian home with exquisite architecture. The walls of the house are done in dark gray with mixes of old-style dark gray and profile bricks to give the facade a weathered look. The roofline is fantastically done with an elaborate lip and pointy spires, and each corner features a gargoyle

There is a carport with zombie valets ready to accept your vehicle before you take a dip in the pool or hot tub on the back patio.

Where did the idea for all this come from? As Ty puts it…

In 2017, I drew a Halloween-themed picture of a haunted house with lots of monsters partying in each room. Later in 2022, I was thinking of ideas for builds I could do for the annual BrickCon Lego Convention in Seattle. I thought the haunted house concept would be a good project, but it needed to be done really well. I wanted it to be dark, with dark colors, but still be lighthearted and whimsical.

The entire building is lit and pulses several colors, giving off an eerie glow. This is accented by a stained glass window, and a large circular window on the main tower reminiscent of Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Santorum.

I am from Alaska, so I didn’t grow up around a lot of architecture, and can’t build it very well, but I found an old book at a thrift store that helped, “The Victorian Home in America” by John Maass, published in 1972. I’d use that and the internet to find elements that I thought were cool, then mixed and matched them into a single structure.

I didn’t know what certain features were called, so I Googled their general description and learned their real name. For example, the metal fencing on top of a roof is called “cresting.” The decorative staggered bricks on the corner of a building are called “quoin.” The trapezoid-shaped roof is called a “Mansard” roof. Doing this project, I found that I learned a lot about real life architecture.

Ty keeps a notebook where he draws out concepts before letting his fingers do the talking.

One side of the building features peek-in walls so you can see what is happening in the rooms, each of which has its own lighting and is polished with immense detail. Witches are cooking in the kitchen with flickering fire. Death is having his fortune read in the parlor. Dracula and the devil are sharing a drink in the library alongside books and artwork. Mummies are reuniting in the basement. The gym comes complete with weights, lockers, a diagonally-tiled floor and a motivational poster. Even the cellar storage area is well done.

 

The building itself is impressive enough, but the surrounding grounds have just as much attraction.  There is a greenhouse, pumpkin patch, swamp, mausoleum, fountains, chicken coop, flowerbeds, a croquet game and a lot more.

I wanted to make something that, no matter where you look, you were seeing something interesting.

While the lighting makes it all pop, the partying minifigures is what bring it alive. The party has vampires, witches, mummies, slime creatures, goblins, skeletons, ghosts, werewolves and other typical Halloween characters, but there are also pop culture references like Disney and Ninja Turtle villains. The witches are cooking all the food alongside zombie chefs, all the butlers are goblins, a collection of mad scientists brings Frankenstein to life on the roof, and there is a mariachi band playing on the back patio.

As I was building, I couldn’t help but start to generate stories in my head. There is a ghost of a lady who drowned in the swamp in the backyard, a secret passage through a chimney on the top floor, a skeleton buried under the patio. I was coming up with all sorts of things, but the best are interactions between the guests at the party.

Ty turned the idea into a series of single panel jokes about the evening.

While the size of this build is immense, it’s the details that really shine. Ty says these are a few of its finest points:

• The bathtub in the bathroom is built upside down and features gold frogs as the claw feet. The shower curtain is a pirate ship sail and the bubbles are ice creams.
• The pool isn’t just a water feature, it is shaded to show the change in depth, just like a real pool.
• The fountain in the front yard is one of the best representations of pouring water. The effect is made using the energy blasts from super hero minifigures. This effect is used again in other fountains and in the skull architecture in the pool.
• The back patio’s intricate floor designs are a mix of dark gray and printed tiles.
• The front bushes use minifigure hair.
• An imp writing on the wall, which is a tile from the collectible minifigure series.

But that’s not all…

I really like Easter eggs, so I put in some specific little details. All 12 symbols of the zodiac are hidden in the build, as is each symbol of the Chinese zodiac. One of each color of Lego spider is also hidden on the building.

Not to be overlooked, the cars parked outside are also impressive. “I can’t build cars, so I took some trips to some auto museums to get ideas and look at some classic vehicles to get the shape down right.”

Overall, the build makes for a howling hell of a party. Audiences agreed, as “Monster Party at 13 Dead End Drive” picked up accolades at both BrickCon and Bricks Cascade. You can see a video of this build at BrickCon here.

I’m really glad this project turned out. This is the first time I’ve ever tried to do a lighting scheme, the first time I’ve tried to do an impressive architectural building, and the largest build I’ve ever made. It was a win on all accounts. Let’s party!