\u201cBearadise,\u201d<\/a> a free, walk-through Halloween display built along a paved pathway. Visitors enter through a homemade archway into a makeshift graveyard filled with DIY tombstones, towering skeletons, webs overhead and hundreds of feet of lights. Hidden speakers, sound effects and fog machines help set the tone for Halloween.<\/p>\nMcCary said the project started small.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this started as a little pet project in 2019 with just a couple bales of hay and a pumpkin as a little Halloween display,\u201d McCary told News4JAX.<\/p>\n
McCary said the display grew quickly after 2020, when families were looking for safe, local ways to have fun.<\/p>\n
Now, he estimates the setup spans nearly 5,000 square feet and draws about 250 trick-or-treaters each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d McCary said. \u201cEven in the summer, you\u2019ll hear kids running through here, they\u2019ll be like, \u2018That\u2019s the Halloween house!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
And getting it all in place takes a team effort.<\/p>\n
McCary said it takes a team of about 14 people to unload everything \u2014 and weeks of setup to get all the electrical, lighting and details right.<\/p>\n
Part of Bearadise\u2019s charm is how much of it is made by hand.<\/p>\n
McCary said many of the tombstones are DIY, and last year he even ran a neighborhood contest for funny tombstone names.<\/p>\n
The goal, he said, is to keep it \u201cfun and light\u201d while still delivering some spooky Halloween vibes.<\/p>\n
\u201cNostalgic for us and it\u2019s a fun time of year,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to impart that fun and that excitement and joy onto other people and their mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and the kids for them to have a good time too.\u201d<\/p>\n
A personal connection to Halloween \u2014 and Salem<\/p>\n
McCary said Halloween is \u201cnostalgic\u201d for him, a holiday tied to childhood memories and family traditions.<\/p>\n
He also has a personal connection to Salem, Massachusetts \u2014 where he got married in October 2013.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why one area of Bearadise includes QR codes that visitors can scan to learn more about the Salem witch trials \u2014 including information tied to people who were tried and executed.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s primarily an evening attraction, he said they often turn on the lights earlier in the evening so younger visitors can enjoy it without being too scared.<\/p>\n
You can learn more about Bearadise \u2014 including past-year videos, a Halloween livestream and additional information HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\nCopyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE PARK, Fla. \u2013 With Halloween just two days away, one Orange Park homeowner is putting the finishing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[503,116,118,117,3489],"class_list":["post-442588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-halloween","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-orange-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}