Happy haunts return to Williams Holiday House

The Williams Holiday House is back to happily haunting West Orange.

Annie Williams and her husband, Joe Williams, are thrilled to see people returning to their home to see the elaborate Halloween decorations and walk through the temporary tents turned haunted houses after Orange County Code Enforcement almost shut down their operations after receiving a resident complaint about the house Aug. 6. 

“We want everybody to come and show up, walk through and see all the new displays we put up this year — especially our new Haunted Mansion display,” Joe Williams said. “We probably would not have done it. That’s how upset we were about the whole thing. … We really weren’t going to do it until people started asking us to do it. … They really wanted us to continue.”

Because the house resides in unincorporated Orange County, it fell upon the county to send code enforcement officers out to the property to investigate. 

The violations were for three vehicles on the property, as well as three large tents, two carports and a water feature on the property that were erected without zoning approval and building permits. 

Since code enforcement visited the property in early August, Annie and Joe Williams had been hard at work to swiftly become code compliant before code enforcement returned to the home Aug. 23. 

The couple removed the fire truck as well as a Chrysler New Yorker from the property. 

Annie Williams said during a follow-up visit to the house Aug. 23, code enforcement told her the couple could have kept the fire truck if they removed two of the wheels off the back so it no longer would be a dual-wheeled vehicle. Williams said they were upset to hear this; they previously were told under no circumstances could they have the fire truck on property, and she cried as it was towed away. 

“That was quite a hard day to be quite honest, because there’s no way of getting that back,” she said. “It went to be crushed.”

Photo by Liz Ramos

But the Halloween decorations, and in the future, the Christmas decorations, can remain. Annie Williams said code enforcement is not allowed to tell anyone to take down any Halloween decorations. 

The Williamses came to a compromise with code enforcement, allowing the couple to keep the temporary tent that houses all the Christmas decorations until January. 

Once January comes, the couple will need to remove the tent and have a permanent and county-approved structure in place to serve as storage. 

There now is another temporary tent serving as a miniature haunted house in the front yard that has all the clown animatronics. Annie Williams said they are able to have the tents because they are considered part of the Halloween display and will later house a Christmas display. 

Annie Williams said they also are able to continue to have the gazebo in the front of the home, because it could be used as part of the display. The gazebo houses the Lemax Spooky Town Halloween Village and will house a Christmas village during the holidays. In January, the gazebo will have to be moved to the backyard, and the Williamses will obtain the necessary permits and variances for the gazebo as well as the fountain. 

A canopy at the front of the property still is intact as it’s used to cover a few animatronics for the Halloween display, but Annie Williams said it likely will be dismantled after the holidays. 

Joe Williams said code enforcement will not return to the Williams Holiday House until after Jan. 1, 2026.

Annie and Joe Williams opened the Williams Holiday House Saturday, Sept. 20. With the city of Winter Garden not having its Halloween Fest this year, Annie Williams said people are looking for a free Halloween activity. 

“They were quite vocal toward us, saying how upset they were about the situation,” Annie Williams said. “They were so thankful we’d open back up because they said people don’t have the money to go to Disney or Halloween Horror Nights (at Universal Studios), so this was their one-time-of-year tradition to come somewhere and it’s all free of charge.”

The couple has had someone reach out and offer to play Halloween music for free, and others are offering to donate animatronics to the couple. 

Annie Williams said the couple will do what they need to so they can continue to have their holiday displays available for the community, even if they need to hire off-duty police officers to help with crowd control. 

Joe Williams said although he’s getting older and the displays take a tremendous amount of effort to create, hearing how much people adore the displays keeps him going.

“I’m a sucker for the kids,” he said. “This is all about the children — especially the big children — because the grown-ups get out here (and) have just as much fun. They love to take pictures in the cemetery at night. It brings joy to us to see them have so much enjoyment about what we provide.”

New to the display this year is the Haunted Mansion portion, which features animatronics of the hitchhiking ghosts and more. There also are new clowns in the clown tent. 

“There’s still more stuff,” Annie Williams said. “Every day probably something else will go out there.”

The actors will be out on the weekends adding to the scare factor. There also will be a Michael Jackson impersonator and live music on some nights.