St. Pete Artist Brings Cult-Favorite Radley House Lore To FloridaRAMA

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — After more than a decade away from building haunted houses in St. Petersburg, local artist Cody Meacham has brought a new chapter of his eerie creations to FloridaRAMA.

Relics & Lore: A Radley Experience, an immersive paranormal installation created in collaboration with FloridaRAMA, located at 2606 Fairfield Ave., opened to the public on Oct. 3.

The experience transforms roughly 1,000 square feet at the arts destination into a Victorian Gothic environment filled with mysterious artifacts, theatrical effects and connections to Meacham’s long-running Radley House mythology.

Unlike a traditional haunted house, his PG-13 experience is designed for visitors to explore at their own pace, discovering details and piecing together the story rather than being chased by actors or subjected to a series of jump scares.

“I really like to appeal to people that like haunted spaces or haunted attractions, but don't want to be harassed by actors,” Meacham told Patch. “This is really the place for you to come and hang out and, like, chill in space and explore versus being threatened and chased out.”

The installation marks a return to the world that helped Meacham discover his artistic calling and became a Halloween tradition for thousands of Tampa Bay residents.

He began building the Radley haunted house at his parents’ St. Petersburg home in 2007 as a teenager because few trick-or-treaters visited his street. He began decorating with tributes to Disney's Haunted Mansion, hoping to give neighborhood kids a reason to stop by.

“I asked myself, ‘How can I try to get kids to come down here, and what can I do to make it spooky for them?’” he said.

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Inspired by the Radley House in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Meacham developed his haunted house with the same name and gradually expanded the project into a more elaborate attraction with a storyline.

He also found inspiration in Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, the first Halloween attraction he ever attended, just a year prior, in 2006, as a high school student

“I remember being so blown away that like, oh, this is like an art form people can do. Like you can create an immersive environment indoors that feels like you're outdoors and feels like you've been transported to a different time and place,” Meacham said.

What began as a small collection of props and outdoor audio at his parents’ home grew into a fully realized haunted house with changing themes, recurring characters, and a mythology centered on the cursed Radley family.

By 2014, the final year he hosted the attraction, nearly 10,000 people had visited over the course of two weeks, Meacham said.

“And people were calling it affectionately the Radley House or the Radley, land that made me really happy, and I knew that people were kind of seeing it as like a St. Pete's staple at that point,” he said.

That year was also a turning point in his career. After connecting with the creative team behind Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights, Meacham moved into professional work in the theme park industry, eventually working on themed attractions. He later also developed his own miniature dioramas under the name Radley Relics.

Now, Relics & Lore at FloridaRAMA offers him an opportunity to bring elements of his earlier work to a new audience.

The collaboration came together after FloridaRAMA contacted Meacham about creating an installation. Initially, he declined because he was considering building another full-scale haunted house in his partner’s backyard. When plans for that project changed, he reached back out to see whether FloridaRAMA might have space for his work.

The team welcomed the idea, and Meacham began developing a smaller experience tailored to the attraction’s available pop-up space.

Using three-dimensional design software, he mapped out the installation before bringing it to life, incorporating environments and special effects inspired by his favorite films and attractions, as well as his original haunted house.

The result is a fictional reliquary — a place where relics are stored — that has been uncovered on FloridaRAMA’s property. Visitors enter an abandoned Gothic space containing cursed objects once protected by members of the Radley family. Ghosts and spirits may still linger, offering glimpses into the family’s mysterious past.

The experience also incorporates familiar elements from previous Radley haunted houses and Meacham’s Radley Relics creations, while leaving room for visitors to develop their own interpretations of the story.

He wanted to create a space that rewards curiosity and close observation.

“It's an immersive art experience designed to create a sense of mystery and discovery,” he said. “We want people to walk in curious, encounter the unexpected and leave wondering what exactly they experienced.”

FloridaRAMA CEO Liz Dimmitt said the installation provides a new platform for Meacham’s work and introduces visitors to a locally created Halloween tradition.

“Cody has built an experience this city genuinely loves, and he has done it one hand-made Gothic detail at a time,” Dimmitt said in a statement. "Bringing Relics & Lore into FloridaRAMA lets his world live somewhere new, and invites our guests to step inside Cody’s incredible imagination to experience an artful tradition a lot of them have only heard about."

The installation is part of FloridaRAMA’s effort to give local artists opportunities to expand their work through immersive, artist-created environments.

Other seasonal programming offered by FloridaRAMA includes Performer Purgatory and Halloween Toddler Rave:

Performer Purgatory, Oct. 17, 8 to 10 p.m., is a one-night only collaboration with the Studio@620 and Wordier Than Thou. Learn about the hauntings of the Fairgrounds - FloridaRAMA’s original name - through two hours of live performance, eerie storytelling, interactive experiences, spooky vendors and local makers, and a ghost tour led by a paranormal investigator.

At the Halloween Toddler Rave, hosted by The Mom Walk Collective St. Pete, families and their little ones can celebrate music, dancing, and Halloween magic.

Creative Pinellas will also host a Halloween Costume Party on Oct. 31, 7 to 10 p.m., as the closing event for its Amped art exhibit in the FloridaRAMA Impact Gallery

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