New York Chef Breaks World's Largest Gingerbread Village Record for Third Straight Year

— -- A New York City chef has broken his own record to create the world’s largest gingerbread village for the third straight year.

Jon Lovitch, executive chef at New York City’s Algonquin Hotel, is a newly-crowned Guinness World Record holder thanks to the 1,102-structure “GingerBread Lane” village he constructed in his New York apartment.

The village is now on display at the New York Hall of Science in Queens, where Lovitch himself likes to drop by incognito as visitors come from all over to admire his handiwork.

“I’ll just go as an average guy because I want people’s honest reviews of it. I like to hear what they say,” Lovitch told ABC News. “I see people squeal and take pictures and, unfortunately, steal pieces, but it’s pretty neat to see those reactions.”

Lovitch follows Guinness World Record rules and uses only gingerbread, royal icing and real candy to create the entirely edible, 500-square foot village. He says he begins the process in January and spends around 1,500 hours over the next 11 months working on the village, on top of his regular 50-hour weeks as a hotel chef.

“I don’t sleep a lot so it makes it easy to have a hobby like this,” Lovitch said. “People just assume I’m some weird gingerbread hoarder that never sees the light of day and it’s just the opposite.”

Lovitch says he scoured local drugstores all year for the best deals on the 782 pounds of candy that are in this year’s village. Though 97 different varieties of candy from 11 different countries are included, Lovitch says the most frequently-used candies are candy canes and M&M’s because they are the type of candy he found on sale the most often.

The chef started his gingerbread hobby back in 1993 after he lost a gingerbread competition to competitors he says were using materials like modeling clay to make non-gingerbread house items like Noah’s Ark.

Describing himself as “disenfranchised,” Lovitch vowed to make his own exhibit the next year and it grew from there, resulting in this year’s third Guinness World Record title.

“I always enjoyed Christmas as a kid, but it’s less about the holiday and the religious aspect of it than it is that during the season about 500,000 people come to visit the exhibit,” Lovitch said. “It’s pretty awesome that people are that into it and enjoy it that much so it’s a rush for me.”

Lovitch bakes the entire village in the four-burner oven in his personal kitchen and stores all the gingerbread village components in his spare bedroom.

Lovitch's girlfriend, Judy, whom he says “loves” his hobby, helps him scout for candy and helps him transport the village in the 12 or so trips in a rented cargo van Lovitch says it takes to move the village to the New York Hall of Science.

“There’s constant trips back to repair them because there are always houses you have to put back together because they go soft,” Lovitch said.

“GingerBread Lane” will be on display in Queens through January 9, 2016, when the village is disassembled and pieces are handed out for free on a first-come, first-serve basis.

“Last year had over 200 people waiting in line,” Lovitch said of the high demand. “If you preserve them, which I’m not allowed to do because of the record, but if you shellac them, they’ll last for decades.”