It began as a message to heaven. Now it's the grand prize winner of our holiday lights contest.
The extravagant holiday lights display that surrounds the Barr family home in Volo all started as an effort to get a message to heaven.
Adam Barr installed a giant “W” made of lights on the home's roof in the fall of 2016 to tell his recently passed father and grandmother that their beloved Chicago Cubs were on their way to the team's first World Series title in 108 years.
What began as a symbol of baseball success has grown into an intricate holiday display featuring a long sidewalk archway; hundreds of thousands of lights, some of which blink in sequence to music; and a bright red-nosed reindeer atop the roof.
For his efforts, Barr earned the grand prize in this year's Daily Herald holiday lights contest.
The win comes a year after Barr's home at 571 Valmont Lane earned the contest's Editor's Choice award for Lake County.
For this year's display, Barr put in even more work to make sure lights blink in sync with music passersby can hear by tuning their car radios to a special frequency. It's a process that he'd merely dabbled in past seasons.
“You want it to be an impactful sequence that goes perfectly to the beat,” Barr said. “But you don't want it to be chaotic.”
The result is an entrancing electrical symphony that captures the eye of the viewer and won over Daily Herald readers.
Beyond the lights and figures and arches, Barr and his wife, Tracy, maintain a full-service Santa mail operation where visiting children can drop off letters to the North Pole.
“We respond to them, and they get a fancy envelope and a nice certificate sealed with a wax stamp,” Barr said. “My wife and I get a lot of fulfillment out of it.”
The couple's four children — Charlotte, Owen, Lucy and Henry — range in age from 3 to 11, so they aren't yet able to provide much help installing the display. But they have contributed many ideas over the years.
“We all will just drive around and see things that look nice. A lot of it is thinking ‘That would look cool,'” Barr said.
“There are a ton of really impressive displays out there.”
While taking down the display at the end of the holiday season may be a headache, putting the display up each year is something the whole family looks forward to.
“We've continued to grow it each year, and we love the response it gets from the community,” Barr said.