What do 40 inflatable flamingos, a skeleton in a lawn chair and a human-sized T-Rex have in common?
They’re all on the lawn of the “Fun House,” in Bayside, Queens, which has become the eye candy (or eyesore, depending on your tolerance for kitsch) of the neighborhood.
If you’re looking for someone to blame, meet the effervescent and eclectic husband-wife duo, Lon, 63, and Joanna Blais, who says her age is “between 40 and death.”
Together they run a personnel and concierge service, act on the side and most notably have transformed their otherwise unassuming, quasi-suburban, 2,500-square-foot family home into a full-time spectacle.
The couple moved into the 1950 Bell Boulevard house back in 2004 after years of apartment living — a moment that happened to coincide with Joanna’s recovery from years of debilitating health issues.
“This house is going to be about fun, celebration,” Lon Blais said he proclaimed when they moved in.
Soon after, they had an artist friend paint murals on their walls and turned the basement into a tiki bar. But when COVID-19 hit last year Lon decided he was going to extend the festive vibe to the exterior of their house.
“I wanted to give people a reason to smile,” he told The Post.
He gathered every last bit of decorations the couple had laying around from various holidays and parties and started to festoon his façade.
“It looked like Walt Disney threw up in my yard,” he said.
Not long after, a little girl walked by with her mother and called it the “Fun House.” The moniker stuck.
Today, with NYC reopened and the worst days of lockdown in the rearview mirror, the Fun House continues to feature a rotating cast of inflatable and generally colorful characters of various themes.
While the usual suspect calendar moments and holidays — Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patty’s Day — are still celebrated with additional Griswold-esque decoration, any number of unrelated accoutrements may join the cacophony of kitsch.
A snowman made entirely of tires, for instance. Or a shed-sized blow-up birthday cake. A Renaissance-reminiscent figurine has been delicately placed in a giant, inflatable T-Rex’s mouth.
Last year, the Japanese Maple tree in their front lawn died (the symbolism of which was not lost on the couple), so they honored it by fashioning a to-scale model of the tree out of cardboard wine boxes.
Last Thanksgiving, they even reenacted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with miniature floats (balloons) and a line of vehicles, a police car in the lead and a sanitation truck at the end of the procession.
Messages of hope are scrawled in chalk surrounding the Fun House walkways and an artist friend painted the sidewalk with cheery patterns. “Love another,” one note reads. “Stay strong,” reads another.
‘It looked like Walt Disney threw up in my yard.’
Lon Blais
The Fun House even gets a warm reception on prickly social media.
“Great job! As a former lighting specialist, gold star,” one Facebook comment read.
“Your house is so nice to see when I’m driving down Bell. It’s true happiness during these times….and I love what you do for every holiday & season!!! Thank you!” read another comment on a Facebook neighborhood group.
Neighbors and passersby gawk and point at the fun scenes. Some add their own messages in chalk. Others leave contributions to the Fun House in the way of holiday or lawn decorations.
“Every once in a while I walk outside and find something that I didn’t put there,” Lon said.
When asked what his wife thinks of the exterior decorating fixation, Lon added that she just rolls her eyes at his efforts, “but in a supportive way.”
Some might call Blais’ pastime inane, childish or worst of all, in bad taste — though luckily they haven’t had any Lampoon-style electrical meltdowns or neighbors angrily dialing 311 as of yet. If anyone has taken a dislike to the outlandish Fun House, they’ve kept it to themselves. And luckily few rules exist on the city or borough level regarding semi-permanent lawn decorations.
“The purpose of the Fun House has been just to make people smile through a really hard time. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with continuing making my neighborhood a little bit happier even as we come out of the pandemic,” he said.
