By James Windell
When four Indiana Avenue neighbors who are buddies get together, you never know what they will come up with.
But Jeremy Buckingham, who goes by the nickname of Sparky – because, he thinks, he has a sparkling personality, came up with a, well, a sparkling idea. Why not light up trees on Indiana Avenue at Christmas time?
“I tried making a Christmas forest in my front yard at my prior house,” Buckingham says. “It was horrible. Tiny trees purchased from the store and a large yard made it look like nothing. And the wind blew them over all the time.” So, last year he wanted to do something different.
“Rev and I had been talking about community building and connecting neighbors.” Buckingham says about his idea and about sharing it with Larry Brown, who goes by the nickname Rev. “I suggested we make better trees and ask people to buy them at cost to create a community forest. He liked the idea. And our neighbors did, too!”
Sparky and Rev’s other two friends, Kirk “Rabbit” Wiley and Chip “Chainsaw” Hudson, joined them in the project. Together in December, 2024, they put up 15 decorated trees on Indiana Ave. “People loved them and more and more neighbors kept asking for them,” says Buckingham.
The concept has grown and the project has become much bigger than they ever anticipated. “So far this year we’ve been asked to construct and decorate 45 trees, and we will be doing about 10 more this coming weekend,” he says. Buckingham adds that they now charge $95 each but that price barely covers the cost of materials.
Sparky says that the trees they designed themselves are unique. “When we started out, Rev and I went through several iterations,” he says. “Ultimately, we settled on the idea that stakes are more flexible in several ways, such as when people don’t have flat yards.”
He explains that they use Electrical Metallic Tubing conduits with a stiff wire at the top to hold the LED strings. They weave about 150 feet of LED lights to create the “strings.” At the ends of the strings are landscape stakes and hair ties as shock absorbers. “All of this works quite well,” Buckingham says, “though the lines are not tight. You want the strings to be loose so the LED strings don’t disconnect over time due to constant tension. We don’t use several smaller strings connected end to end because the electric plugs and bundled excess wire didn’t have a good look. The single string provides for a clean lighted appearance.”
What makes their trees so special is the size. They are tall and wide. And, also, bright white. “Our trees are crisp and have a clean look,” he says. “The uniformity throughout the town is a nice touch we didn’t anticipate.”
There’s one other thing that the gang of four – dubbed the Treehouse Gang — figured out. “Believe it or not, you can’t buy a tree like this,” Buckingham notes. “And you couldn’t get one for less than $200 even if you could find one. Believe me, I’ve searched long and hard in hopes of getting out of the product business! Just getting the bright white lights in the right length was hard. We never expected that, but it’s true.”
Buckingham indicates that people like their trees so much that they are all around the city, not just on Indiana Ave., and many people who ordered trees have generously given them extra money – above what they were asked for.
At a house party at Wiley’s house on Indiana Ave., on Dec. 2, 2025, not only did the Treehouse Gang talk about their lighted trees project, but they said they had donated their excess money to Kirk and Jennifer Wiley’s Zambia project.
Although the Treehouse Gang can’t take any more orders for this year, their unique lighted trees can be viewed on Indiana Ave, as well as on other streets around the city.
What’s the future hold for the Treehouse Gang’s decorated trees?
“We’re hoping to get an organization to assist us next year,” Buckingham says. “Maybe we’ll come up with a new design made for less and in larger quantities and then donate the proceeds to a charity – like the South Haven Public School’s Secret Santa program.
But for now, they can enjoy having brought something unique to the town they love.
“A neighbor down the street stopped me to say she turned down the street, and to her it was just magical,” Buckingham says. “That was cool to hear. We never intended it to grow as it did, but it sure has been fun seeing a forest grow and meet so many like-minded individuals. We were just neighbors being neighbors. That’s been fun.”
Buckingham adds that there was a bonus in watching the Treehouse Gang work together toward something bigger. “I’m lucky to have great and giving neighbors.”
