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While the McCallisters are busy jetting off on a family vacation, little Kevin is tasked with defending the family fortress against the perils of two less-than-smart burglars called the Wet Bandits. The brave, charismatic, and sharp little boy thwarts every attempt the duo of thieves make to gain access to the house and its assets. The filmmaker once thought of all his characters living in the same universe. The center of the Home Alone films, Kevin McCallister, was played by actor Macaulay Culkin.
McCallister house
“We would have not believed back then that there would be sightseers coming to look at that house for years afterward,” John Abendshien told me in an interview. Situated at 671 Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka, Illinois, the neighborhood is known for being one of the priciest in the country, as stated by the New York Times. Zillow lists the property as having 10 bedrooms, six bathrooms, and covering an impressive 5,398 square feet. Kevin calls the police and lures the duo into a vacant neighboring house that they had previously broken into. Harry and Marv ambush Kevin and prepare to get their revenge, but Marley intervenes and knocks them out with his snow shovel.
Where is the McCallister house in Home Alone?
The New York Times turned to economists and people involved with the film to find the answer. Amanda Holpuch watched “Home Alone” for the first time while reporting this story. Of course, a number of Chicago landmarks made an appearance, including the Willis Tower, the Sears Tower at the time, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Most of the locations for another one of his classics, "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off," are in and around the region as well.
Rob McCallister's Brownstone house
The Abendshein family also got to interact with Culkin and the other cast members from time to time. As far as Snopes could tell, the above photo truly does capture the appearance of the house several decades later. The photo was posted on Reddit's BeAmazed subreddit on Dec. 26, 2023, where it gained over 2,800 upvotes, a solid number for a Reddit post.
While a large portion of the movie was filmed on a soundstage, shots of the home’s interior can still be found in the film. The scenes of the foyer’s grand staircase and the living room were the real-life Home Alone house. There were, however, some tiny changes made to facilitate some scenes in the film. Oh, and the back door down the set of stairs outside – that actually wasn’t real. A backhoe was brought in to dig up that part of the property so that a fake door and steps could be added in.
How rich were the McCallisters in ‘Home Alone'? NY Times turns to economists for answers - NBC New York
How rich were the McCallisters in ‘Home Alone'? NY Times turns to economists for answers.
Posted: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Can today's average American family buy the ‘Home Alone' house? Here's what the numbers show
The police arrive and arrest Harry and Marv, having identified all the houses that they broke into due to their habit of flooding them. Hughes conceived Home Alone while on vacation, with Warner Bros. being originally intended to finance and distribute the film. However, Warner Bros. shut down the production after it exceeded its assigned budget. 20th Century Fox assumed responsibilities following secret meetings with Hughes.
A Glimpse inside the Real-Life 'Home Alone' House, Which Has Also Been Made into a Lego Replica
Just How Rich Were the McCallisters in 'Home Alone'? - The New York Times
Just How Rich Were the McCallisters in 'Home Alone'?.
Posted: Fri, 22 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
The Abendsheins eventually sold the Winnetka house in 2012 for over $1.5 million. The current owners are maintaining their privacy and have made renovations since then. Hughes called the place “perfect” and that it was how he imagined the Home Alone house would look like. Like Rockwell, Cauley used saturated greens, reds, and golds to stand out against the white fluffy snow. “I thought of it like a flip-book, where use of color orchestrated throughout would give the film a warm feeling,” says Cauley. The only way to describe the interior of the Home Alone house is to compare it to a Norman Rockwell painting, which is precisely the aesthetic Cauley was going for.
The home is located at 671 Lincoln Ave in Winnetka, Illinois and was used primarily for exterior shots. Because the production found it too small for equipment, only a few interior scenes were filmed there. The kitchen, along with the main staircase, basement, attic and most of the first floor landing were filmed on location in the real house, thus making them the home's only interiors to be featured in the film. Most of the house's interiors were recreated or duplicated on a soundstage built in the gymnasium of former campus of New Trier Township High School.
Quite the improvement overall…unless you’re a diehard lover of 90s interior design. Home Alone was produced and written by the venerable film legend, John Hughes. My decor and wall-covering choices for Home Alone changed the color palette of the nation for the upcoming decade,” Cauley tells AD. According to an article by House Beautiful, the most popular paint colors ahead of the film were subtle mauve, denim blue, light turquoise, and barely-there pink. And after the film’s release, in 1991, Benjamin Moore’s most popular color was Arroyo Red, a deep reddish-brown color.
When Kevin accidentally gets left behind by his family on a planned overseas vacation, he initially enjoys having the house all to himself. They realize that breaking in isn’t going to be as easy when Kevin has set out traps for them. Even the parts that were supposed to be set in the Paris Orly Airport were actually filmed at O’Hare International Airport. The interior of the plane was a set built on a basketball court at the local high school.
On Christmas Day, Kevin is initially disappointed to find that his family is still gone, but Kate arrives home, and they reconcile. The rest of the family then returns after waiting in Paris for a direct flight to Chicago. Kevin keeps silent about his encounter with Harry and Marv, although Peter finds Harry's knocked-out gold tooth. Kevin then happily watches Marley reuniting with his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter. Shoplifting was “significantly more common” among people with family incomes over $70,000, according to a 2008 article published in The American Journal of Psychiatry. In 1990, the house was affordable only for the top 1 percent of Chicago household incomes, and that would still be the case today, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Despite debuting in November 1990, interest in the Home Alone house remains enduring. Recently, The New York Times delved into the real cost for the McAllister family to live in the grand home today. This iconic property in Winnetka, Ill. even had a unique stint as an Airbnb, equipped with booby traps akin to those used by Kevin in the holiday classic. Silvers wasn’t the only one who had the smart idea to visit the house ahead of the holiday season. “There were quite a few cars parked on the opposite side of the street so as not to interfere with picture taking.
At that time, there were few film studios in Chicago, and John Hughes lived north of the city. “Filming in an empty high school meant we were in close proximity to his family,” explains Cauley. “He could visit the sets easily or stop in and see filming, and then go home and write.” Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Uncle Buck were also filmed in Chicago. But the fun and games soon come to an end when Kevin is faced by the wet bandits—two bumbling burglars who have their sights set on robbing the McCallister home. Villains Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) soon realize the house isn’t vacant like they first thought, and an endless game of cat and mouse ensues, with Kevin setting intricate booby traps to protect himself and his family home. All with a little help from old man Marley and his wicked brother Buzz’s pet tarantula, of course.
Remarkably, the video gained incredible traction, amassing a whopping 14.4 million views and counting. Even more intriguing, it caught the attention of Daren Janes, a user who claimed to be the art director on Friends. He shared the behind-the-scenes scoop, revealing that the house was a set, and the exterior was provided by Pacific Studios, initially designed for Home Alone due to its ideal appearance through the door and windows. Fans lauded Westwood’s keen observation, as Janes’ comment earned over 103,000 likes and nearly 400 comments. If fans of the movie did not get a chance to relive their favorite memories from the film by booking an overnight stay in the real-life McCallister home, they could buy a miniature Lego version of the house.
Fans of the cult hit flock to the actual house in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka. Located at 671 Lincoln Ave., the famous movie home is not for sale and does not welcome visitors. Abendshien expressed her surprise at the enduring legacy of her family’s home, mirroring the unexpected popularity of the Friends two-bedroom apartment, transformed into a rental space in collaboration with Booking.com in 2021.
During the night, heavy winds create a power outage, disabling the alarm clocks and causing the family to oversleep. In the confusion and rush to get to the airport, Kevin is accidentally left behind. The mansion along Lincoln Avenue was too small for all the crew members to fit inside, director Chris Columbus explained, so the team had to come up with a different solution. They still used the home for exterior shots — but actually shot the indoor scenes at New Trier Township High School after it closed due to declining enrollment in 1981. Over 30 years since "Home Alone" came out, the legendary real-life home where the movie was primarily filmed still stands.
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