Port St. Lucie was featured on this week’s season premiere of “The Great Christmas Light Fight,” and for good reason.
Partners JW Salveson and Jerome Sangalli will open their spectacular Port St. Lucie Christmas House – as seen on the ABC reality show – to visitors on Tuesday, Dec. 4.
“This will be the 11th time the house is open over the last 14 years,” Salveson said. “It’s something entrenched in the community.”
The television show started its sixth season Monday, featuring extravagantly decorated homes competing for cash prizes. Salveson and Sangalli were up against three others for a $50,000 prize and a shot at more cash. Show host Taniya Nayak picked a Nebraska family over the others. But, she offered Salveson and Sangalli a great compliment.
“You’re like Port St. Lucie’s Santas,” she said on the show.
Before the show aired, Salveson talked to St. Lucie Voice and said Sangalli and he were elated to be on the ABC production.
“We’ve already won,” he said. “The kids and animals have already won, because we’re putting them on this program.”
The “kids and animals” is a reference to the Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Lucie County and Dogs and Cats Forever, a no-kill shelter in Fort Pierce. The partners use the Port St. Lucie Christmas House to raise toys and funds for the organizations.
“It’s not just a day; Christmas is a way of life, because we do it all for 5,000 children,” Salveson said on the show.
The partners moved to Port St. Lucie after a huge loss. They were living in Fort Lauderdale until Hurricane Wilma visited.
“We lost our house to Hurricane Wilma,” Salveson said. “I lost my house, my job and my car all in the same day.”
That would bring the them to Port St. Lucie. “I got another job up here, so we moved up when Tradition was really young, 2005,” Salveson said.
One thing the partners weren’t going to lose was a beloved holiday.
“Christmas is our thing,” Salveson remarked. “We’ve been doing Christmas the whole time we’ve been together.”
While living in Tradition, they put up numerous Christmas trees.
“We had a Christmas party and I showed off 25 trees,” Salveson said.
A friend and party guest, Jeannette Weiss, thought they should invite folks from the community to see it. She happens to own J Weiss PR, so she happened to be very good at making sure the community got the invitation. The Port St. Lucie Christmas House was born.
Salveson and Sangalli moved from Tradition a few years later, and the Port St. Lucie Christmas House went with them. But, a few years later tragedy again struck the couple.
“In 2015 I was in a very bad car accident,” Salveson said. “I was at a dead stop (at a light) and this young girl was texting. In a 35 mph zone she was doing 55.”
Salveson said the motorist hit the car he was in pretty much dead-on. His spinal cord was injured. Doctors explained to him he might be left paraplegic.
“I was more upset about not doing the Christmas house than not walking again,” Salveson said.
He turned to his Catholic faith, along with skilled doctors. As fortune has it, South Florida has a concentration of experts on spinal-cord injuries. A doctor from the Miami area learned about Salveson’s case and offered to help. Salveson had endured three surgeries while putting faith in God through Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fatima, a title for Mary. Salveson promised to do the Rosary, a Catholic prayer, daily.
“It had been 40 years at least since I’d said a Rosary,” he said. “I had to look it up.”
To highlight what he believes to be a miracle of faith and medical science working together, Salveson made his appearance on “The Great Christmas Light Fight” marching as the drum major in front of the Treasure Coast High School Marching Band.
“I’m walking, so I got the miracle,” he said in the St. Lucie Voice interview.
And Port St. Lucie got to keep its Christmas House.
Sangalli and Salveson decorate the exterior with a huge, barely-legal, Santa inflatable, a large nativity and 40,000 lights, among other things. But most of the show is inside. There are more than 70 Christmas trees, 75,000 lights, and an angel tree with antique decorations, among other things spread out through every room in the home.
“We’ll have well over 10,000 people come into our house this year,” Salveson said.
Admission is a new, unwrapped toy for the Boys & Girls Club or the purchase of a raffle ticket for a chance to win a seven-night cruise for two to benefit Dogs and Cats Forever. The tickets are $10 each. As for the toys, “we do request the value be $10 or more,” Salveson said.
The Port St. Lucie Christmas house will be open nightly to Dec. 18 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The later time is when the line is closed. The house will stay open until the last person to arrive prior to 9 p.m. gets to see it. A professional Santa Claus will be on hand nightly, along with law-enforcement professionals.
The house is at 716 SE Walters Terrace. Updates are at posted at www.facebook.com/portsaintluciechristmashouse. Donations are accepted at www.gofundme.org. Look up “The Port St Lucie Christmas House.” Note the lack of a period after “St.”
