Christmas Lights

This is our annual Christmas Light Display

The 2003 display shown here contained 112,000 lights.

The light count for the primary elements:

Palm Tree – 17,500

House Front – 15,000

Towers – 14,400

Tree of Lights – 13,000

Roof – 11,000

Cypress Tree – 10,800

Blue Bonsai – 7,000

The display is located on Southwest 34th Street at 57th Avenue in Miami Florida

The Towers

The Towers were built in the late 1930’s to be the entrance to Western Coral Gables.

Because of World War II, the community was never established.

For my display, they are covered with two sets of lights – Gold and Red.

A special high current fader cross-fades between the two colors every 30 seconds.

Candy Cane Palm

The Palm Tree is most popular element in the display.

The palm is 60 feet tall. I rent a boom lift every year for set-up and again for tear down.

There are 12,000 red lights, 2,500 white lights, and 2,000 green lights.

The white lights are narrow net lights while the reds are dense garland style.

The red garland are positioned so they shine downward, intensifying the color from the ground.

All of the lights are secured with zip-ties to the three primary extension cords that run down the back side.

The Kapok Tree

This is a Kapok Tree that I’ve grown from seeds I collected at Epcot Center. It is 5 years old now.

Every year it drops its leaves in the winter. This year I stripped the leaves early and wrapped it in purple lights.

I created a little forest of short Christmas Trees around its base. Notice the thorny trunk.

Minor Elements

A moving projector shines on the garage door and the house edge is trimmed with dense multicolor lit garland.

The bush in the foreground is filled with Crayola Crayon Colored Christmas lights that are unique pastel colors.

The small garden is covered in pink lights and has the Lighted Flamingo lawn sculpture to add the Miami flair.

We are the South Florida Distributor for Animated Lighting products.

We also offer display design and installation services.

Please contact Derek Deville at 305-665-1521 for more information.

Lights on 34th Street, 1999

The Blue Bonsai

I have been growing and shaping this Bonsai Tree for the past nine years.

It contains a mixture of Blue and Frosted White lights.

There are 6000 blue and only 1000 Frosted White.

This is because of the disparity in brightness between the two.

This tree also has about 50 very bright low voltage random twinkling bulbs to make it sparkle.

Tree of Lights

This 40 foot tall tree is made by suspending 100ct light strands from a bracket bolted to the tree behind it.

The shape of the tree is maintained by three PVC pipe ribs that are bent to shape.

The strands are connected to a cable that passes through a pulley and goes to the ground.

I can raise and lower the entire thing from the ground.

For storage, I straighten the ribs and roll the whole thing up into a log of lights.

The Front Door

The front door is surrounded by a very thick industrial garland and an edging of close spaced trim lights.

The garland is decorated with berries and dense garland style lights. It’s further enhanced with twinkling rice lights.

Technicals Aspects

Here are a few behind the scenes pictures that show the controllers and power distribution.

The moving lights on the front of the house are controlled by the Animated Lighting Controller.

I have programmed 32 separate sequences to create the moving patterns.

The entire display draws 480 amps through 28 circuits that are all connected to a single timer.