Fifteen years ago, Joel Keefer was driving around when he spotted a pumpkin patch filled not only with garden-variety gourds, but ones that were enormous.

"I just about wrecked when I saw them," said Mr. Keefer, of Aspinwall. I said, 'That's incredible; I have to have one.' "

Soon he was hoisting a pumpkin weighing more than 400 pounds into the back of his Chevy Suburban. When it made its debut, carved and lit, on the front porch of his Fourth Street home, neighbors and passers-by took notice.

"People just kept stopping by, asking about it. They wanted to know how much it weighed, if I grew it, how I got it home, and on and on," Mr. Keefer said.

Since then, Mr. Keefer, 58, has continued to buy a huge pumpkin every Halloween, and save one year, the pumpkins have steadily increased in size.

This year's gourd, which he carved last Thursday, weighed in at 1,261 pounds. It came from Parks Garden Center in Canfield, Ohio, which grows some of the biggest pumpkins around.

Growing such a hefty pumpkin is work. Once the fruit reaches about 250 pounds, it is rolled onto a padded pallet. The padding helps keep the underside from rotting and allows it to be moved by forklift once it's fully grown, Mr. Keefer said.

Pumpkins of this size can sell for 35 to 45 cents a pound, Mr. Keefer said, meaning at full price, this year's model could have cost him as much as $567.

Fortunately, a promise to give seeds back to the nursery brought the cost down by more than a third, Mr. Keefer said, declining to give the exact cost.

The seeds, about the size of a nickel, are genetically groomed to grow supersize pumpkins. To get the gourd home, Mr. Keefer has the nursery load it into a one-ton dump truck he uses for his landscaping business. That's the easy part.

Once it is home, seven men -- nobody wimpy, he noted -- roll the pumpkin up a ramp to his front porch, which he built with extra supports so the pumpkin's heft doesn't cause a collapse.

A reciprocating saw with a 12-inch blade is used to cut into the top and create the lid. After the lid, which this year weighed 170 pounds, a nose hole is cut and someone goes in, head first, to scoop out the innards, pushing them through the nose.

This year, the stringy orange gook filled two garbage cans, Mr. Keefer said.

After coming up with a design -- this year's face is about 4 feet by 4 feet -- 1,000 watts of halogen light is placed inside, serving as its candle.

The pumpkin typically lasts only a week or two before morphing into something that looks like "a very old man without his dentures," Mr. Keefer said, laughing.

"We always pray for cold weather because it lasts longer," he added. "The halogen light pretty much cooks the pumpkin and it turns black inside. We put some clove and cinnamon inside and it smells like a pumpkin pie for a while. Then it just turns more black, then green and purple with mold. Then the flies come. By then, hopefully, Halloween is over," he said.

Cleanup calls for the pumpkin to be chopped up and hauled to the dump. Mr. Keefer says despite the cost and work, the annual tradition is worth it.

"Everyone asks me when I'm going to stop doing it," he said. "But I don't know. ... To see the looks on the kids' and parents' faces when they see it is really priceless," he said.

Hoping to bring a smile to other faces also has kept Mr. Keefer active in another project. For the past five years, he has worked to beautify a piece of land that sits in the loop that takes westbound drivers on Freeport Road in Sharpsburg to the Highland Park Bridge.

Mr. Keefer became interested in the project after seeing a man, whom he later learned was Bob Condron, former principal of Fox Chapel's Fairview Elementary, working on the state-owned site. Mr. Condron had taken on the overgrown and littered piece of land as a project for his church.

Mr. Keefer said once he saw Mr. Condron working solo on the roughly 150-foot circular green space, he decided to offer some of his business's equipment to haul away debris and remove trees.

With the help of donations from various nurseries, new topsoil has been spread and a 40-foot Sunset Maple has been planted, along with rhododendrons, mums and various other flowers. Piping also was installed to make sure the plants receive water.

"It's more important and I'm more proud of that than the pumpkin on my porch," he said. "We get lots of compliments and that's what makes it worthwhile."

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