Lately, in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood, you’ll find people walking, biking, and driving up to see a home near Clement Street and Third Avenue. The Halloween decorations outside the home have been adapted in great detail to reflect the season and lore of the Golden State Valkyries.
As the Valkyries continue their historic stretch – playing in the WNBA finals in only their second season as a team – the people behind the display continue to make it more elaborate.
The couple who live in the home, Ainsley Rossitto and Sarah Swig, are loyal Valkyries fans who moved into the neighborhood this year. The idea began as they started to plan out Halloween decorations this fall.
“It really did start as a bad pun of ‘Boohalla,’ a play on ‘Ballhalla,'” explained Rossitto. “And it started to spiral when we thought, ‘Let’s dress up the skeletons.'”
“Ballhalla” is what the Valkyries and their fans affectionately call their home court at Chase Center. Now, the Inner Richmond home is referred to as “Boohalla” and has social media pages.
“We have really had the yard evolve, and what the skeletons are doing evolve as they are succeeding in the playoffs,” Rossitto said.
“When we beat the [Dallas] Wings, [the skeletons] were out there having a chicken wing fest. When we beat the [Las Vegas] Aces, they were doing Vegas-style bottle service to celebrate,” she continued.
The display is packed with Valkyries inside jokes and team references. One skeleton named “Natalie Nacauldron” is dressed similarly to the Valkyries’ head coach, Natalie Nakase. Other skeletons are giving piggyback rides, just as guard Veronica Burton has been known to do for her teammate Kaitlyn Chen.
In honor of the Valkyries playing the Atlanta Dream in the finals, the yard now has an “Atlanta’s Worst Nightmare” section where a skeleton is sleeping in Steph Curry’s signature “Night Night” pose in a bed labeled Hotel Valkatraz.
“We were just trying to have fun with the Valkyries’ journey with our skeletons and to kind of re-enact and celebrate the journey,” Rossitto said. “But people have been embracing us and sharing on social media. We’ve crowdsourced some ideas that people had.”
At first, Swig and Rossitto said their visitors were mostly people walking through the neighborhood. But as word started to spread, they’ve met people who’ve traveled from other parts of the Bay Area just to see the display and snap photos.
“We came down from Santa Rosa,” said Christina Lindh, who dropped by the display on Sunday. “We wanted to see it because this is the joy we need to see in the world right now.”
After years of some big changes in Bay Area sports teams, many fans said they’re hungry for the chance to embrace this new team.
“Losing the A’s, losing the Raiders,” Jaylin Kerkvliet of Santa Rosa explained. “Now, it feels like this is something that has kind of returned to form about what makes the Bay so special.”
Swig and Rossitto said they have met people of all ages through their Valkyries decorations recently, some of whom have brought items to add to the display.
“This ended up obviously being so exciting to everyone locally and kind of a destination,” Swig said. “I feel like we will probably do this every year.”
At “Boohalla,” there are two cardboard tombstones covered in the logos of the WNBA teams that have been eliminated so far this season. Swig and Rossitto are really hoping to add the Atlanta Dream to that list.
“I feel like for [the Valkyries], it’s sort of destiny – not to count our chickens before they hatch – but it will be a really, really special moment if they can pull it off,” Swig continued.
The Valkyries will play Game 2 of the WNBA Finals on Monday at Chase Center in San Francisco.
