Above: Bartenura Moscato Handmade Menorah - New for 2024. 

Created by Wendy and David Hefter, November 2022

Why did we decide to create a Chanukah House display?

In December 2021, our youngest daughter married her fiancé in Pikesville, MD. We then traveled with them to Texas to celebrate some of the Sheva Berachot with her new husband’s family. While being driven around for a tour of the area, we were shown the Chanukah House of Houston. What a spectacular sight!!

When we returned home to Pikesville, we hosted the first Chanukah event for the newly forming Chabad of West Pikesville. With their 6’ menorah and our combined decorations, we saw the positive impact of sharing this holiday with our local community.

This tradition had begun many years ago with the first Chanukah House on Park Heights Avenue and then switched over to the Greenspring Avenue house, which eventually stopped their display. We contacted them to purchase their inventory. Our goal was to merge some of the old items with our new ideas to continue and enhance the Chanukah House tradition. While our creative ideas were developing, we took advantage of post-holiday sales of lights, decorations, timers, and inflatables to begin our collection for 2022.

David then retreated to his workshop to build a custom, 6.5-foot menorah, including tiki light holders and a shout-out to our Baltimore Ravens. He then began sketching the layout of decorations and watching YouTube videos with instructions on how to hang holiday lights, make custom extension cords, place spotlights, and arrange timers. The new Chanukah House was taking shape!

Wendy was busy cleaning and preserving some of the animated characters and freshening up others with new and vintage clothes and accessories. When the characters’ outfits were completed, Wendy and our oldest daughter worked together to create the layout of the characters on our porch.

Next, David figured out where to hang lights from the roof, gutters, and windows while also creating large wooden dreidels and building and painting decorative fencing, as well as finalizing details for how to place and light his magnificent menorah and assorted inflatables.

In November 2022, the excitement began to build as Thanksgiving was celebrated, and we began the decorating process. Wendy and our oldest daughter set up a new Facebook page and created the initial publicity promos. Our son assisted with the initial photography to enhance the Facebook page and promo materials.

On December 4, 2022, the Chanukah House of Pikesville, MD was officially ready to share with the community. The display is turned on from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm EST. Each of the eight nights of Chanukah, the large outdoor menorah will be lit. Details about Menorah Lighting times are listed on this website, as well as on Facebook-Chanukah House of Pikesville, MD.

Chag Sameach!

Wendy and David