EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — Marie Carr grew up with a behind-the-scenes view of a winter wonderland.
Her father, Frank LaGiusa, designed the holiday displays at Nela Park for decades. And he brought the work – just part of his job at GE Lighting – home with him. The family’s dining room table was often filled with pieces of tree toppers and other decorations in progress.
“My dad was a store-lighting designer, and he gave talks and lectures about retail lighting and lighting mosques and all kinds of things – all over the world,” Carr said. “But this is what he’s known for. … Nela Park really is something that has become a tradition for so many people in Ohio and beyond.”
That beloved tradition is still going strong at 100 years, despite recent changes at the pioneering East Cleveland industrial park. GE Lighting, now owned by smart-home company Savant Systems Inc., flipped the switch on the centennial show Friday night and will keep the lights on around the clock through Jan. 6.
Savant bought the company in 2020. An out-of-state developer purchased Nela Park in 2022 with hopes of turning the campus into a mixed-use project. But GE Lighting stayed put as a tenant, with a downsized headquarters and a commitment to the holiday displays.
“This is the home of GE Lighting, and we’ve been doing this for 100 years,” said Ben Sabol, a spokesman for Savant. “We plan on doing it for 100 more.”
This year’s display, along Noble Road, blends nostalgia and new technology.
There are picture frames showcasing older props, from children making snowballs to Santa and his sleigh.
A procession of cars, including a station wagon with a wrapped-up Christmas tree on top, alludes to an era when visitors could drive through the park, winding along candy cane lane and weaving between the Georgian Revival-style buildings.
Then there are cupcakes made from bendable, color-changing light strips, which your voice or a smartphone app can control. And there are more than a million long-lasting, energy-saving LED bulbs.
Technological advances have made lighting designer Debbie George’s job easier. But the consultant, who has been working with GE Lighting for 22 years, still runs into the occasional snarl.
“We do have to wrestle with the squirrels,” she said, laughing, during a recent walk through the park. “And they like to eat the wires. So that’s a biggie here.”
George also designs the National Christmas Tree, which GE Lighting has dreamed up and illuminated for over 60 years. A replica of the tree sits just outside of the main entrance to Nela Park, where passersby can stop to take selfies or admire a collection of vintage tree-toppers.
Carr remembers watching her dad develop tiny models of the national tree as he meticulously planned each year’s design.
“That was always really fascinating,” she said, “because I was horrible at math, and he was awesome at math. … Those holiday displays were pretty much equal parts engineer and designer."
George starts thinking about the next year’s theme in early December, the minute the lights come on. The planning process begins in January or February, and a small crew begins building the props and stringing lights during the summer.
Much of that handcrafting happens in a nondescript warehouse on the campus – one of the many quiet buildings that once teemed with workers. Skeins of colored lights hang on the walls. Oversized decorations line a long hallway, where doors lead to storage rooms for stars, snowflakes and vintage tree toppers.
"It gives me a little bit of a chill, a little bit of excitement, just to be in the space," Sabol said.
The main workshop is filled with tall wooden figures, from toy soldiers and a leg lamp to a rainbow smart bulb.
“We continue to evolve as a company – and as the technology changes,” Sabol said. “But it’s all rooted in the innovation that happened when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. And that string of innovation continues today.”
Jeff Carter drove up to Cleveland from Atlanta on Tuesday to work on his planned documentary about a century of Nela Park holiday displays.
The film is a passion project for the broadcast engineer, who has been obsessed with Christmas lights since his childhood. He recently released a documentary about the National Christmas Tree and will be speaking, along with George, at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights on Sunday.
"It's beautiful," Carter marveled on Friday night, just after the lights came on.
When GE Lighting started its displays, there were no outdoor Christmas lights on the market, George said. Engineers used whatever technology they had available, competing to one-up each other with their creations.
Over the decades, through classic holiday scenes, the show told the story of how products developed in East Cleveland helped to light up the world.
That's always been one of Carr's favorite parts of the event.
“Here’s this amazing campus that has so much history, sitting in this neighborhood behind iron gates. ... It's the one time of year that Nela Park, GE, could show off what they were doing inside those gates. To everybody,” she said.
"It's more than about the holiday lighting," she added. "It's touches everyone's life in some way."
