Waxahachie, Tex. ? For the past two months, there’s been something rather spooky happening on Farm Road 813 south of Dallas on the outskirts of Waxahachie.

Sounds of things getting chopped up and sawed off. Bonfires on an almost nightly basis. A sign dotted in blood-red writing.

But don’t worry, dear residents of Waxahachie it’s just Charles and Sandra McKee building their dream house.

Their dream house, however, is inspired by a rather creepy source: The Munsters, the 1960s TV sitcom about a family of freaks who, much to their befuddlement, scare normal people.

The McKees can kind of relate. With contractor Steve Wilson of Mustang Construction in Waxahachie leading the way, the McKees are erecting a replica of the Victorian-style house used on the series, causing quite a stir in an otherwise relatively quiet area of town.

“Oh, it’s nuts,” says Charles McKee. “Not a day goes by that we don’t hear people’s brakes screeching, or see people pulling over gawking. I guess some people think we’re crazy.”

It doesn’t help that the McKees burn leftover scrap lumber in their yard or that they have a sign in the driveway with the word “Munsters” coated in red.

The McKees say their house will echo nearly every detail of the Munster mansion. When they are done they’re shooting for the house to be livable by fall the 2-story, 5,825-square-foot pad will mimic the exterior and interior of the TV-show house.

A dungeon, occupied in the show by Grandpa (played by Al Lewis), will open from the den. Secret passages will snake around upstairs. And planted in the middle of the staircase will be the TV-show house’s trademark feature: a trap door leading to the quarters of Spot the McKees’ German shepherd pooch, who was named after the Munsters’ pet, a fire-breathing dragon.

Copyright laws and other legal wrangling go along with such turf. But Wilson says Universal Studios, which owns the rights to the show, has been supportive.

“I called Universal Studios and said, ‘Is there gonna be a problem?’ And they said no, because all you see on the show is the front of the house. The inside of that house was not used in the show. That was a set. So they said, ‘We can’t copyright something that doesn’t exist.’

“Plus, they said if it’ll make people talk about “The Munsters,” great.

Sandra McKee, 44, says she’s not trying to duplicate everything from the series, which ran from 1964 to 1966 and starred the late Fred Gwynn as the Frankenstein-ish Herman Munster and Yvonne DeCarlo as his vampirish wife, Lily.

“They had a phone inside a coffin on the show,” Sandra says. “That’s just too creepy for me. I don’t want a coffin in my house. I’m only going to get in a coffin one time.”