What do most people have in their garage? A grassy mower? A workbench with random tools that weren’t put away? Boxes of books destined for Goodwill? Bikes and a car or two? began six years ago, when Herman and his wife and kids moved to a house in the Central Park neighborhood . “It started with a front-yard display,” Herman says, “but it was pretty thorough. We had animatronics and a fog machine and the whole works.
Once greeted by Herman, decked out in mining gear and speaking in a Western prospector accent, visitors come into an entry room and are led into what looks very much like a mine shaft elevator. “It’s super realistic,” Herman says. He created the effect with a motion simulator box “on airbags...with 3-D animation that shows up on a TV screen, sequenced to the motion,” he explains. The resulting effect seems to take visitors deep down into a very haunted abandoned mine.
He generally works the attraction himself, with his wife and two kids helping where they can. A new attraction takes almost six months to create, while mounting one that's previously been made could take roughly six weeks. But putting it together is all part of the fun."Neighbor kids will come by and watch, sometimes want to help," Herman says."It's inspiration for some kid down the line to want to envision something and build it, whatever it might be.
back in 1999. “That was equally inspiring to me," he enthuses."The first one was like, ‘Hey, this exists!’ and that second one was like, ‘Holy crap, this is crazy!’ It was stimulus overload in the best sort of way.” In the end, Herman's enthusiasm stems from being a self-professed “big Disney nerd,” as well as a dad. “There’s no gore,” he's careful to point out. “It’s more spooky and creepy. More ‘What’s around the corner?’ kind of scares. No one’s going to come at you with a knife or anything.