Die Hollow brings Halloween to life — and a few kids to their knees

For six years, Stephanie Van Cleave and her family have transformed their The Dalles property into a one-night Halloween experience, building a tradition that local children are growing up with.

Photos Courtesy Die Hollow

By Tom Peterson

The Dalles, Ore., Oct. 15, 2026 — The trees have arms. Some, angry faces. A Ford Pinto sits nearby, its seats filled with skeletons and devils. Up the driveway a haunted gold mine appears to burrow deep into the hillside.

Welcome to Die Hollow, where monsters roam the property, jump scares come as often as the terrified screams.

The people doing the scaring may be having more fun than the people being scared.

When Stephanie Van Cleave, 40, walked me through the preparations at her home at 930 E. 19th St. in The Dalles, the property was in that deliciously unsettling stage between ordinary and otherworldly. Leaves were turning and dropping from the trees, and familiar deathly figures were emerging from the ground for another season.

The full spectacle wasn't ready yet. Van Cleave prefers it that way.

Stephanie Van Cleave is always working behind the scenes as she and her family put the tricks in Halloween. Die Hollow looks to be spookier than ever this year at 930 E. 19th St., in The Dalles. Bring your costume. Bring your fangs. Bring your defibrillator.

“We kind of believe that the magic of Halloween is Halloween night,” she said. “We don't decorate too much in advance.”

That means keeping the neighborhood guessing until the big reveal. This year's additions include a monster menagerie, with a different creature in each cage. The Pinto will become part of a scene involving someone stealing gold.

“It's a lot of trial and error,” Van Cleave said of the construction. “But it's fun during the day, and then you see if it looks good at night when the light hits them.”

Die Hollow is part art installation, part haunted attraction and part family reunion. It also represents something Van Cleave didn't fully anticipate when she and her family began six years ago: They were creating childhood memories for a new generation.

A family tradition takes root

Van Cleave grew up in a family that took Halloween seriously. Her mother, Lisa, loved the holiday, and relatives in the Willamette Valley made it an occasion for elaborate gatherings.

One aunt organized a scavenger hunt that sent children searching for hidden objects in cemeteries. One year, an uncle dug a grave in his yard and leaped out of it as children came trick-or-treating.

“That is a core childhood memory of mine,” Van Cleave said. “My uncle pops out of this hole that he basically backhoed out of his yard.”

Those memories stayed with her. But when her family moved to the property in The Dalles, Halloween was surprisingly quiet. The driveway looked made for a spooky attraction, yet the family wasn't getting trick-or-treaters. Neighbors told her they weren't getting any, either.

Then, in 2021, Van Cleave's grandmother, Colleen, became seriously ill and moved to The Dalles for care after living independently in Pendleton for about 40 years.

The situation was stressful, and Van Cleave responded the way she often does when life gets difficult: She found a project.

“I'm the type of person that, like, if I get stressed, I work,” she said. “I paint my house, you know, I do something, clean or deep clean or do something like that.”

This time, the project was Halloween.

“Let's do the thing we've always talked about,” she recalled thinking.

Her family rallied around the idea. Her husband, Jim Fisher, their children, her siblings, her parents and family friends joined in. Her sister Melonie and brother-in-law travel from Corvallis, while a childhood friend and her husband come from Seattle.

What started as a way to keep busy and bring some joy into a difficult period became an annual undertaking.

“I don't know that I could have got through it if I didn't have something to, you know, kind of not just express myself, but keep myself busy and, you know, kind of work through some of that,” Van Cleave said.

Where the monsters roam

It’s coming.

Die Hollow has evolved each year, with returning features and new surprises. The haunted forest includes trees the family built themselves, alongside purchased decorations that have been repurposed and weathered over time.

The scarecrow, whom the family calls Jed, has been around since the first year. He stays outside through the winter, acquiring the kind of weather-beaten character that would be difficult to manufacture.

“That's the thing about Halloween: It doesn't have to be perfect,” Van Cleave said. “It's actually better if it's not.”

The cemetery and corn maze are other fixtures. The family adds new scenes while keeping familiar favorites that returning visitors look forward to seeing.

But the decorations are only part of the experience. Monsters move through the property, catching visitors off guard as they make their way among the scenes.

Van Cleave's brother-in-law, Scott, plays a werewolf, roaming instead of staying in one spot. He's the family's top scare artist, she said, and has occasionally frightened people before they even get out of their cars.

One year, the family heard a car door open and then immediately heard screams. The visitors had barely emerged before the werewolf crawled up alongside them.

“I was like, 'Well, don't scare them before they get out and come look,'” Van Cleave said.

But the screams are part of the appeal. Jump scares come frequently, and the shrieks that follow are a welcome sign that the family has done its job.

“Every time we hear somebody scream, we're like, 'Yep, that's why we're here.'”

Die Hollow aims to be family-friendly, without gore or physical contact, but that doesn't mean visitors are guaranteed a calm stroll.

A new character this year will be the raven queen, played by Van Cleave's sister, In a full-face costume with wings, she will wait in a nest, trying to remain so still that visitors won't realize she's a person.

Last year, she sat motionless on a rock wall until a group of teenage boys dismissed the attraction as something for little kids.

“She just popped out and scared the daylights out of them,” Van Cleave said. “They all screamed like little girls.”

The incident became one of the night's highlights for the performer.

Van Cleave's brother, Kyle, has his own signature role: Frankenstein’s monster. A crowd favorite, the old Deadbolt lumbers around as children approach to poke at him and pose for pictures.

“Everybody loves monsters,” Van Cleave said.

The house itself becomes a staging area, with Van Cleave's oldest daughter serving as host, cooking a large pot of chili and helping take care of the actors. Van Cleave and her best friend dress as witches and hand out candy from a large witch's hut, giving them a chance to talk with children and parents.

A year's work for one night

Should have used sunscreen.

Although the decorations appear in a concentrated burst near Halloween, the work goes on throughout the year.

Van Cleave works in human resources and describes herself as more of a project manager than an artist. But she has been building, painting, planning and assembling Halloween pieces all summer.

The final push usually begins about a week before Halloween. The family sets up solar lights, tests animatronics and checks each scene after dark to see how it looks to visitors.

“It's a lot,” she said. “It's a lot of work.”

She has been doing it long enough that she no longer needs the checklist she relied on during the first years.

“It's all up here now,” she said, tapping her head.

Her husband has suggested opening the attraction earlier, but Van Cleave remains firm about keeping it to Halloween night.

“I'm steadfast on that one,” she said. “The magic of Halloween is Halloween night.”

That makes the experience fleeting by design. For one evening, the property becomes a different world, then the decorations disappear until the next year.

“It's kind of like our Halloween Burning Man a little bit,” Van Cleave said, comparing the attraction to the temporary desert gathering that rises from the landscape and then vanishes.

The family shares photos and updates on Facebook and local community pages, helping spread the word about an attraction that once had no trick-or-treaters at all.

Now, Van Cleave estimates that roughly 700 to 800 children visit on Halloween, accompanied by parents and other adults. She calculates the number by tracking how many bags of candy the family goes through.

Family members pitch in by bringing pumpkins and helping with the work. Fisher designs stickers that the family distributes along with candy, giving visitors a small souvenir of their night.

Van Cleave remembers a couple who returned one year after the stickers had run out. They were disappointed.

“I felt so bad,” she said. “They were like, 'We really wanted our sticker.'”

The memories that matter

Halloween is magically delicious.

For Van Cleave, the most rewarding part may be watching the same children return year after year.

Some of the original visitors, who were little kids when Die Hollow began, are now in junior high. She has watched them grow up alongside the attraction.

Last year, a child who had visited repeatedly asked what would be new. Van Cleave suddenly realized what the family had built.

“These kids are going to remember,” she said. “They're going to grow up : 'Do you remember that Die Hollow thing we did every year at Halloween?'”

That is the tradition she hopes will endure — not just the decorations or the scares, but the shared experience.

She enjoys seeing children react in different ways, from those who love every fright to those who need a little encouragement. Adults come without children, too, drawn by the spectacle and the chance to see what has changed.

The questions can be as entertaining as the costumes. Children sometimes ask where the family stores all the decorations.

“That's a good question, kid,” Van Cleave said. “I've got skeletons in the closet. Really, I do.”

Even the property's unexpected residents have become part of its story. Black cats began appearing after the family moved in, apparently abandoned by people who left animals nearby. One cat showed up, stayed and had kittens. The family calls her Mama and tries to get the cats spayed or neutered.

They fit the place, Van Cleave said, even if that wasn't part of the original plan.

By Halloween night, the foam rocks will be disguised, the pumpkins arranged, the lights tested and the actors ready. The family will gather behind the scenes, carrying on a tradition that began during a difficult year and has become something much bigger.

For all the construction and planning, Van Cleave still finds the property creepy enough to give her pause. Sometimes, walking outside alone at night, she wonders if it would be scarier with no decorations at all.

“I'm not walking down there by myself,” she said. “No way.”

Even the Halloween queen knows when to call for backup.

Die Hollow is scheduled to welcome visitors from 6 to 9 p.m. on Halloween, Oct. 31, at 9:30 E. 19th St. in The Dalles. The family says it keeps the attraction going until everyone who comes has had a chance to see it.

And if a monster jumps out before you make it up the driveway, don't take it personally.

That's family tradition.