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Haunted house uses recycled materials

By Staff | Oct 1, 2016

Master haunt creator Tim Dunne has accumulated a frightening amount of salvaged material – and now that the Halloween season is here, he’s dying to use it.

Dunne, owner of Dunne’s Demolition, collects piles of discarded material and found antiques from buildings he’s dismantling. The longtime haunt master makes sure to squeeze every bit of life from old building material to scare to death the visitors to his haunted Nashua attraction.

Dunne started creating haunts as a kid in his parents’ basement. His professional presentations started 11 years ago at the 15,000-square-foot Fright Kingdom, located at 12 Simon St. Over time, he said, he learned he had to grow and step up his game.

And grow is what he’s done. His haunts now fill 150,000 square feet.

"The cost saving is great, but the key thing is it becomes more original. Everything is real," he said.

Dunne owns Fright Kingdom, which this year is expected to use more than 100 cubic feet of recycled goods – from furniture and props to other building materials. Where most haunted houses use manufactured scenery, Dunne and his crew pride themselves on creating something original that visitors will not find anywhere else.

An antique phonograph has been rewired to play music. Prints of sailing ships add detail to a nautical-themed room. An antique sewing machine, ironing board, washing machine and refrigerator make you feel right at home – though the home is not going to leave you with any warm, fuzzy feelings.

Old porcelain bathroom fixtures were installed to serve as a centerpiece for a gruesome scene not for the faint of heart. Similarly, the home’s kitchen has been rebuilt to provide space for an act that would most certainly not be sanctioned by the American Culinary Foundation – nor quite approved by the American Board of Surgery.

All his "new" old stuff, he said, "gives realism to the sets. You can’t buy that kind of realism. You just can’t."

Dunne’s team doesn’t simply turn a key and open the door to visitors each scare season.

"We have to change stuff. Our customers demand it," he said, noting that he is proud of his work and his ability to provide jobs. His staff blooms to about 100 people during the scare season, including build crew, support staff and actors.

Using loads of material saved from the local dumps, Dunne’s crew has fashioned stone blocks from old ceiling tiles. Salvaged lumber is transformed into a false staircase, and an old polished banister adds authenticity.

Former Hudson students may recognize bookshelves that were salvaged from a job at Alvirne High School, now repurposed in Bloodmare Manor.

Halloween arrives in October for most people. For Dunne, it begins in mid-July.

"We make major changes every year," he said. "We’re in here most every single weekend ripping scenes out – scenes that were beautiful, but we’ve got to make it different for the people. People want a different scare. They deserve it, and they demand it."

To that end, old lathe stripped from a plastered wall becomes a dilapidated roof.

"I’ve got a big pile of it outside. We save it and reuse it," Dunne said. Old doors with glass knobs line long hallways.

Dunne’s tribute to Disney World’s Haunted Mansion is fashioned from what he could save from a late-1800s building destined for the trash heap. Clapboards, trim and white columns now present a grand entrance to a miniature but wonderfully wretched old home. Inside, an animatronic figure plays a salvaged organ – one of several instruments once unwanted that are now in a place of honor.

"Two-by-fours and plywood. I save it out of every single job," he said, keeping it out of landfills. "We always have a constant supply of fresh material for our builds."

A particularly fortuitous tear-down job was at the former Batesville Casket Co. in Nashua. The center-city manufacturing facility is now Palm Square housing complex. But before its rebirth, Dunne secured a load of old caskets.

Ghoulish mannequin children sit atop real tricycles, all rescued from barns and garages that were under the claw of his heavy equipment. Once scrap, now it’s found new value.

"All of it, every bit of it," Dunne said.

Halloween has always been Dunne’s favorite holiday. He said he still can’t pass up a Halloween shop, themed aisle in a store, or the region’s other spooky attractions around this time of year.

"We’re lucky in New England to have so many haunted houses around," Dunne said. "As far as haunted houses go, in my opinion, there’s no bad haunted house."

As for his own work, he said there are countless hours of research, designing and building invested into the final presentations.

"We’ve invested a lot of blood, sweat and tears and money into this over the years – and extra blood," he joked.

Don Himsel can be reached at 594-6590, dhimsel@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DonH.

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