She’s the lady with all the lights.
Monaca Machado admits that’s a fair conclusion. But to many
locals who have regularly passed her Versailles Drive house over
the past 12 years, it’s a vast understatement.
She’s more. Much more.
She’s the lady with all the lights.
Monaca Machado admits that’s a fair conclusion. But to many locals who have regularly passed her Versailles Drive house over the past 12 years, it’s a vast understatement.
She’s more. Much more.
She’s a holiday aficionado. So don’t be fooled, newcomers, into thinking she lavishly adores Valentine’s Day a few weeks a year, then stops being that lady with all the lights for another 11 months.
By the looks of her fantasy-land yard – lit like Vegas and decked out with heart-shaped trinkets – she expends enough effort on Valentine’s Day alone to gain a peculiar notoriety.
Three story-high arches – constructed from $1.99 pieces of pipe – are the lawn’s centerpiece. From each hangs a beaming “Love” sign.
Together, those serve as a passageway to a tarp-covered gazebo near her front door. It, like every structure on her property, is plastered with dangling lights and traditional Valentine’s adages.
Inside the gazebo, where she often chats with family and friends, chairs are covered by sweetheart red cloth. Ornaments hang throughout.
She excitedly flicked a switch to turn on a red disco ball that hangs form the gazebo’s ceiling.
“It’s a disco ball – a love ball,” she said as it spun.
Her yard – when lit, can be seen from a block away – is a maze of Valentine’s knickknacks. There’s a scattering of hip-high signs, a swinging bench covered with holiday allure and many other statues and accessories that proclaim Machado’s love for love.
But she certainly doesn’t halt her addiction Feb. 15, doesn’t stop showing her devotion to making others smile. She never stops.
Machado decorates her house and yard all year long, one holiday a month, and has done so for nearly two decades. Before she moved to Hollister in 1992, she had been cultivating her habit for six years in San Juan Bautista.
Yeah, maybe a couple weeks at a time – brief transitions between 11 other “holidays” – her home doesn’t burst with festivity. As for Christmas, the zenith of all, she spends three consecutive months, one fourth of each year, working daily to prepare the spectacle.
“Everyone’s lives are so busy and hectic,” said Machado, married with three adult children. “I try to decorate every month outside to bring a little light and joy to everyone in the neighborhood.”
Machado said she has never tallied the fixtures, though, and doesn’t know their value. She does know one thing: The collection has gradually expanded since 1985, which also happens to be the year she and her husband, Michael, got married.
They were married on Christmas – as a present to his mom – and then waited until Valentine’s Day to hold a reception.
So she feels a particular affection for those two days – not that her fondness is lacking for New Year’s, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, summer, back to school, Halloween or Thanksgiving.
She stopped doing Father’s Day some time back.
“As a Father’s Day gift to my husband, I quit doing that,” she said. “That’s his gift. He doesn’t have to help me decorate.”
This year Machado won’t decorate for back to school, she said, grimacing. Instead of starting in September, classes will start in August.
That month is reserved for summer-themed doodads – “big fat ladies in bikinis, beach ball lights, beach balls tied up all over, little kids in scuba gear.” This year will be the first she hasn’t done anything in September, she said.
Whatever the month or holiday, though, one constant has remained. Machado can be found on most days in or near the yard, where she welcomes strangers, engages them in conversation.
Through the years, she said, she has spoken with thousands of people who have perused her displays.
The No. 1 question they ask of her? Most people are curious where she stores all her decorations. But there’s nothing fancy to it – the Machados put them in plastic containers they store in a cellar, she said.
At Christmas time, and Christmas time only, she invites people inside the house to see her two prized collections – a room with about 1,000 angel statuettes and a wall in their bedroom garnished with heart boxes. Machado maintains a guest book for people to sign, she said.
“They were gifts to me from people who loved me,” she said of the wall ornaments, “And I’ve never thrown any of the candy boxes or heart boxes away, ever.”
It’s hard to remember all the random visitors’ names, she said. But she tries. Once, a man she hadn’t seen in three years came by. Machado told the man his last name, the state he’s from, his occupation and his kids’ names.
“And he said, ‘I’m so flattered you remember me,'” she said.
Most neighbors remember her, too. It would be difficult not to.
One year the family had taken in a foreign exchange student from Brazil. After attending his second day at San Benito High School, he couldn’t remember the Machados’ street.
The boy approached some strangers for help.
“And this elderly gentleman said, ‘Oh, I know where the house with all the lights is,'” Machado said, adding the man gave the boy directions and he found his way.
Machado said there’s no way to add up all the time she’s labored over her hobby. Aside from Christmas – when “there isn’t a square inch of the house and yard not decorated” – most holidays demand about three days preparation.
She has also assembled and painted many of her trinkets, spending a couple hours a week on that. And annually, Machado makes 3,000 handmade gifts – every year’s a different theme – to give away at Christmas.
Neighbors have gotten used to it all, she said. One of them, Lisa McShane, believes most people are much more than accustomed.
“She brings so much love to this whole neighborhood,” McShane said.
Kids, especially, seem to enjoy Machado’s holiday cheer. A family with a little boy, about 7, recently moved in two houses down, she said.
“He said to his aunt, who’s a friend of mine, ‘Oh, we get to move in across the street from the lady with all the lights.'”
