NORTH PORT — Each Halloween for the past five years, Phil Lekic and his wife, Michelle, have created a monstrous wonderland for children at their Mincy Terrace property in North Port.
Hundreds of neighborhood children and families waited in line to enter their house of terror build on the site of their North Port Home. All the neighbors call it Gruesome Groves.
But Gruesome Groves won’t happen this year due to Hurricane Helene and incoming weather.
Last year, Lekic, a house painter, took tarps and drop cloths, then collected pallets and built a walkthrough haunted house, complete with live actors and mannequins hanging from the rafters.
“This year, I was actually thinking of having a chainsaw in the background and spraying red paint on the tarp,” he said.
His plans also included renting a golf cart with characters roaming the neighborhood.
But unfortunately, his creative ideas were put on hold with Hurricane Helene.
“Every time I started to set things up, it started to rain,” he said. “Then Helene hit and it took out all of the decorations that were already unpacked.”