If you’ve ever watched Home Alone, chances are you were enthralled by the home alone house itself. The home is just as big of a character as any other character in the movie; after all, as Kevin sets up all his traps all around the house, you get to see the home and feel like you’re almost living there yourself.
Here are a few interesting facts you may not have known about the Home Alone house.
It’s a real house owned by real people
You might have thought that Home Alone was filmed on some sort of set, but the truth is that it was owned by a real family in Winnetka, Illinois. The property owners at the time of filming were John and Cynthia Abendshien, and the home is a two-story brick colonial-style home built back in 1921. The 4,243-square-foot home has six bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms, not including the attic and basement. As anyone who’s seen the movie can attest, it’s a truly gorgeous home.
Home alone house is valued higher
This home is also valued more highly than the average in the area no matter how you measure it. Right now, it’s valued at $1.9 million, significantly above the median sale price in Winnetka of $1.1 million. The wider region of the North Shore has a median sales price of only $475,000, making it nearly two and a half times more highly valued than this median area. Even after controlling for house sizes, this home comes out on top – Chicago’s median is $267 per square foot, while this home is $454 per square foot.
The filmmakers added many crucial elements
That outdoor staircase that Marv falls down while he’s trying to get into the McCallister home? Astonishingly, that’s not even part of the home itself. In an interview for Vanity Fair, owner John Abendshien said, “They brought in a backhoe and dug up the property and put in fake steps and a fake door. And then after the shoot, they filled all that back in and sodded. You could never tell that that had happened.” They also had to build the treehouse.
The family was living in the house during filming
You might assume that the family would have effectively rented the home to the filming crew entirely, but they actually lived at the home while the crew was filming. The couple’s daughter was only six years old during the filming, and she remembers the time fondly. “In order to avoid appearing on screen,” she recalled, “we would have to crawl around the window line from room to room.”
Conclusion
It’s true that the filming process for Home Alone house was complicated and oftentimes difficult, but the family enjoyed their time. As a matter of fact, they say the crew became like family. They seem not to have any regrets. In the words of John Abendshien, “If faced with that decision back then, knowing what I know now, I would certainly do it, absolutely.”
