‘Gnomes are Gnice!’ See Boise’s best Halloween costumes, houses on Harrison Boulevard

Shuffling from one house to the next, Rowan Anderson took up the whole pavement on Harrison Boulevard. Other trick-or-treaters had to hop onto the grass to get around the 9-year-old boy.

But that didn’t bother Anderson; he was rocking one of the best costumes of Halloween night out of all the trick-or-treaters filtering up and down the one-mile stretch of road that offers some of the best trick-or-treating in Boise.

And that’s saying something, considering Harrison Boulevard sees trick-or-treaters in the thousands yearly.

Anderson was dressed as a vending machine, complete with flashing lights, real candy visible through a film cover, and a $5 bill sticking out of a narrow slit.

“I made it myself, and it’s awesome because I’ve got three full-size candy bars because of my costume,” Anderson said while producing a full-sized Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup from the depths of his cardboard costume.

Monday night was Anderson’s fifth year coming to Harrison Boulevard, a testament to the incredible production that the residents of Harrison Boulevard put on every year.

From the southern tip of the street to the north, nearly every house is decked out from top to bottom in spooky decorations. One iconic house is known as the “Monster House,” featuring a giant eye and teeth that stare down upon the trick-or-treaters that pass below it.

Another house is self-described by its owners as the “most benevolent” house on the street. The house’s front yard is covered in giant mushrooms, fairy lights and a cast of friendly hosts dressed as gnomes.

A sign that states “Gnomes are Gnice!” is staked near the pavement, giving trick-or-treaters a reprieve from the rows of spooky skeletons, ghosts and ghouls.

“We’ve been doing this for about seven years,” homeowner Greg Durand told the Idaho Statesman, speaking through a fake white beard and holding a giant pitchfork. “We’ve just built on it, and it’s the most benevolent scene. It’s the least scary, kind, and gentle, and no one gets scared.”

What is scary is the number of pieces of candy Harrison Boulevard homeowners hand out each year.

Durand said that they pass out 3,000 to 5,000 pieces of candy to trick-or-treaters each year, spending hundreds of dollars in the process.

Continuing to grow

The exorbitant amount of money spent on candy isn’t keeping people away. It’s continuing to bring even more people to the historic road, both trick-or-treaters and homeowners alike who want to get in on the action.

A family of colorful sharks stood out walking down the middle of the road, which was blocked off at either end to provide a safe experience free of cars.

They were dressed as the baby shark family — Cearston and Conner Oberst as mommy and daddy shark and their 15-month-old daughter, Averleigh, as baby shark. It was Averleigh’s second time trick-or-treating down Harrison Boulevard, but the first time she could stand by herself and show off her costume.

“It’s nice that it’s a family event,” Cearston told the Statesman. “There are so many families, and it’s just the atmosphere here is really fun.”

At the south end of Harrison Boulevard, a new spooky attraction has also popped up: Spook Alley.

Six residents in an alley between Harrison Boulevard and 16th Street produced a fright-filled walk for trick-or-treaters, complete with jumping spiders, a resident dressed as the Joker with a chainsaw, and candy.

“This is the second year of doing this,” Douglas Smith told the Statesman. Smith was dressed in a top-to-bottom grim reaper outfit and handing out candy to children from a giant bowl as he talked.

“We’ve got a great alley, and we’ve got great neighbors,” he continued. “We know Harrison Boulevard’s a big thing. So we thought we’d all combine our efforts with a special thing. So it’s our way of giving back to the community.”

The alley was a quick hit on Monday night, and Smith predicts that each neighbor spent up to a thousand dollars in decorations and candy.

The spookiest night of the year has gone as quickly as it arrived in Boise, but the excitement doesn’t end on Harrison Boulevard. Homeowners will get a quick reprieve from the decoration chaos before getting ready for another spectacular Christmas light show in December.