The Lights on Bell Road brings holiday cheer through dazzling Christmas light show

 

NILES, Mi. -- Ken Kuespert has had a long fascination with electronics and Christmas decorations, and he's combined those interests by creating a light show that has become something of a holiday tradition on Bell Road. 

According to Kuespert “We started doing the lights when we built our house in basically 2000, 1999—thereabouts—so about twenty years.”

The Lights on Bell Road started "modestly," initially the decorations were simple incandescent strings of lights, before growing into the elaborate light show it is today: featuring 60,000 color-changing LED lights and 181,000 different control channels, all programmed by computer.  

The show draws people out from all over to see the display of lights, set to a variety of different Christmas songs, though it can create traffic on his road.

He said “There’s an announcement during the show that says, you know, ‘please make room down the road. Park on both sides.’ But there’ll be ten or twenty cars lined up in both directions on Bell Road, patiently waiting in line to see the show.”

Even so, Kuespert is glad to be able to spread the Christmas cheer.

“We’ve talked with some of the people that are there sometimes," he said. "We’ll walk out and they’ll go 'oh we come every year, we really enjoy it. It’s one of our things we do.' And we get letters in our mailbox from time to time, thank-yous and things like that. That’s what we do it for.”

The show will stay up through New Years Weekend and the light show runs from 5:00am -- 11:00pm.

More information can be found at Lights on Bell Road | Christmas Lights in Niles Michigan