EVANSTON — David Biebinger didn’t know what to think when a friend texted him out of the blue asking if his home was the “Clown House” in Evanston.
“I’m like, ‘Clown House? What does that mean, 'Clown House' in Evanston?” Biebinger told Cowboy State Daily. “I had no idea what that was about.”
More texts followed from other people, all asking the same strange question.
Curious, Biebinger finally Googled it.
“That’s when I saw it,” he said. “It came up in a 'Rehab Addict' (search). And then all the comments — there were hundreds of comments.”
They were reacting to the images of his home in the background of the show’s subject house across the street.
Biebinger’s display includes a couple of creepy-looking light-up clown faces on his roof, along with yard decorations. Those clowns totally photobomb those scenes, especially when they’re illuminated.
Long before fans of “Rehab Addict” started freeze-framing his house online, Biebinger’s elaborate Halloween light displays were already a beloved Evanston tradition.
He didn’t realize it at first, but those same decorations had photobombed Season 10, Episode 1 of “Rehab Addict.”
Even though the show had painstakingly focused its camera on the remodel of an 1890 historic home, Biebinger’s decked out Halloween home directly across from it, had managed to appear in shot after shot.
Fans of the show had definitely noticed, and were asking all kinds of questions about Biebinger’s home, dubbing it the “Clown House.”
That’s because the largest, most noticeable Halloween decoration was a giant clown head on the roof.
Fans had freeze-framed shots of the clown head reflecting in the rehab home’s windows, zooming in on the glass to see it better.
Some tried to hunt his place down online to see it more directly, others wanted to know why the show had never mentioned the bizarre, glowing “Clown House” during the episode.
The irony of that question, in particular, isn't lost on Biebinger.
When the crew had been in town filming, he’d offered to let the show film a quick, two-minute display of his lights. They’d turned him down.
“There were more comments about my ‘Clown House' than there was about her rehab,” he said, chuckling a little bit.
Light Show Years In The Making
Long before Biebinger’s home became a mystery obsession for “Rehab Addict” fans, it was already a Main Street star in Evanston.
Biebinger’s annual Halloween and Christmas light shows started out as big “jungles” of holiday light displays back in 1997 for his children when he lived at a different house.
By the time he moved to his home at 533 Main St., his light displays had become more elaborate, and he had invested in a computer-controlled system that could sync his lights to the beat of music.
He estimates he’s put roughly $15,000 into his light shows, including the computer systems, lights and decorations, some of which he makes by hand.
At first, the light shows were just to delight his own children.
After they grew up, he kept doing it because it had become a community tradition, one that delighted many other parents’ children.
“Now I do it mainly for Evanston,” he said. “My kids loved it, and everybody in town loves it.”
The transformation begins every October. His home goes from an ordinary single-story frame house to a miniature theme park.
Then there’s a short break in November as he switches everything over to Christmas lights instead for a display in December.
Cars pack the block to come and see his creations year after year, Biebinger said. He estimates that thousands of people pass by the house each year.
A Nightmare On Elm Street Year
It takes Biebinger three weeks to a month to set up his display.
Every song is meticulously programmed so that the lights and animated faces will move in perfect sync with the music.
“Each song takes six to eight hours to program,” he said. “I mean, you have to program every second of what that light is going to do. Each section of those are linked.”
Many of his light props are handmade. He sketches out the idea on paper, then rolls out chicken wire on the driveway to bend it into life-size faces and shapes. Then he wraps the shapes with lights, sculpting a light show to remember.
When he’s finished, though, it’s worth it.
For the “Rehab Addict” season that his home photobombed, he had a Nightmare on Elm Street theme.
A huge clown on the roof lip-synced to each song, with eyes flashing in time to the beat.
That created the eerie, floating image in the windows of the home across the street that fans noticed during the Season 10 premiere of “Rehab Addict.”
Biebinger did take a break the last two years from the full-blown Halloween and Christmas displays after a death in his family. There were some lights, but nothing like it’s been in the past.
He plans to start things back up again this year.
Hollywood Meets Halloween
The first time Biebinger met "Rehab Addict" host Nicole Curtis, she was at his front door with a television crew in tow.
“They showed up with all these cameras and stuff and they were knocking on my door,” he said. “Nicole is like, ‘Hey can you do this’ … And I’m like, ‘Who are you?’”
Curtis told him she and her crew were in Evanston to rehab the historic Gilmore family home directly across the street from him.
But her problem was timing. Her crew was trying to film a quiet, dramatic makeover show during the same hours that Biebinger was in the middle of prime time for his display.
Curtis asked him to turn the music down or off more than once during filming. She also asked him to move vehicles out of sight so the filming crew could get clean shots of their truck.
At first, Biebinger was happy to cooperate, but as filming wore on — sometimes late into the night — and the requests kept coming, things started to wear a little thin as filming stretched into November.
“She started to get a little bit ornery, too, so I just left the music on,” Biebinger said. “The neighbors were getting upset, too, because they brought in all this equipment and were taking everybody’s spots.”
The Flaming Pizza Box
From his side of Main Street, Biebinger had a more behind-the-scenes look at "Rehab Addict," including several spats that erupted between Curtis and her then boyfriend.
The most memorable of these was a flaming pizza box.
“She wanted to heat some pizza up,” Biebinger said. “And she stuck it in the oven without taking the pizza out of the pizza box.”
There was also a dispute involving an old truck the boyfriend told Biebinger was his, which he said Curtis had kept locked up in the garage for a time.
“He lives in Wyoming in the Riverton-Lander area,” Biebinger said he was told. “And I don’t know the whole story, but he finally got his truck back.”
Watching the completed show, Biebinger said he was impressed with the rehab itself.
“It does look good,” he said. “She did a good job.”
The home, as far as Biebinger knows, is still owned by Curtis, who he says has been seen in the neighborhood from time to time checking on the house.
As for his own home, Biebinger hopes to bring the full show back this year, giving Evanston kids — and maybe a few “Rehab Addict's” fans passing through — another chance to see his Halloween “Clown House" lit up again.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
