Everything to Know About the ‘Home Alone’ House
Behold the silver tuna. That’s the designation burglar Harry Lyme gave to the mammoth red-brick Georgian-style house whose facade is etched into the millennial generation’s collective consciousness. The 1990 film Home Alone (starring Macaulay Culkin at his artistic apogee) is about as zeitgeisty as it gets—and this was before the internet proliferated the use of the word zeitgeisty. It could be argued that the McCallister residence itself was the co-star of the film.
What is Home Alone about?
The question you should really be asking yourself is, “How do you not already know?” Hellion child Kevin McCallister finds himself accidentally left behind when his enormous family jets off to Paris for the holidays. What starts as an eight-year-old’s dream of unbridled freedom quickly turns into a battle to protect his home from two dimwitted burglars. He rigs deadly boob traps throughout his house in the hours leading up to their break-in. Meanwhile, his mother frantically scrambles to reunite with him, with maternal guilt and adrenaline fueling her resolve.
Can you visit the Home Alone house?
Built in 1921 and located at 671 Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka, Illinois, a tony suburb of Chicago, the house’s white-trimmed windows and symmetrical facade are instantly recognizable. Pulling up to it on an icy December night in an Oh-Kay Plumbing and Heating van, you can immediately picture the raucous ersatz party scene Kevin put on through shaded windows to make the Wet Bandits—Harry and his partner Marv Murchins— think his family was home, thus deterring them from breaking in.
Was the movie actually filmed at the house?
Most nostalgic 30- and 40-somethings might be shocked to discover that though the exterior of the house was prominently featured in the movie, the cheesy green-and-red Yule-inspired interiors were not. Instead, the production team constructed sets at a nearby high school gymnasium to replicate the McCallister family's living spaces. This allowed for greater control over the filming environment and facilitated the iconic interior scenes—the pizza dinner meltdown, Kevin’s sled ride down the stairs, the infamous paint-can assault, and Marv putting his foot through a nail on the basement stairs.
Is the Home Alone House for sale?
The the five-bedroom, six-bathroom, 9,126-square-foot home went on the market in 2012, selling for $1.5 million, down from an asking price of $2.4 million. Those buyers then put the house up for sale last summer for $5.25 million according to a Zillow listing—a price it has stayed steady at. At that gargantuan size, prime location, and with the expected pop-culture premium added, this silver tuna is still a steal.
You Might Also Like
