The Home Alone House: The Iconic Film Set that Was Home to the McCallister Family

Table Of Content

• Want to drive past the ‘Home Alone’ house? Or the church? A tour of 12 filming locations around Chicago.
• A guide to Los Angeles architecture
• Coming home, staying home: ‘Apollo 13' and ‘Home Alone' among 25 films picked for national registry
• “The Power of the Dog” ranch was purposefully built for the movie
• While visitors aren't permitted, photos from last year's Airbnb listing offer a look at the inside
• What are those ugly diamonds bolted onto the side of old buildings?

Some locations, like the Home Alone house and grocery store, underwent external makeovers. The whole movie has the theme of Christmas surrounding it, making the locations very enjoyable for the viewers. His mother, Cassandra Bayna, said Noah thought of the business himself, including the idea to perch signs for “Kevin’s Hot Cocoa” on the sidewalk.

Want to drive past the ‘Home Alone’ house? Or the church? A tour of 12 filming locations around Chicago.

Watching and quoting the iconic Christmas movie "Home Alone" isn't the only way fans of the movie like to celebrate the holiday season. Highland Park Presbyterian Church is next door, but it’s not the one Kevin visits next. The interior scene, where Kevin chats with Marley, was recorded in Oak Park at Grace Episcopal Church, 924 Lake St. Ironically, there was a police car parked in almost the same area as it appeared in this scene — next to the park — on the day we visited. The Tribune gave the modern Christmas classic, which was shot in just 62 days in the city and suburbs, three stars.

A guide to Los Angeles architecture

From ‘Home Alone' in concert to hotel packages: How to celebrate the iconic Christmas movie - NBC Chicago

From ‘Home Alone' in concert to hotel packages: How to celebrate the iconic Christmas movie.

Posted: Tue, 28 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Lauren Abendshien, who was 6 during the filming experience, spoke to British TV show “This Morning” in 2020. “Sometimes I think they just want us to open the door so they can see inside,” Cynthia Abendshien told the Tribune about gawkers in 1992. “We live on the most boring street in the United States of America where nothing even remotely dangerous will ever happen, period,” Buzz (played by Devin Ratray) tells a sister. The lucky guests were treated to Chicago's finest pizza, a candlelit dinner of microwavable Kraft Mac & Cheese, and set up booby traps for potential intruders. Kevin goes to Santa Claus and wishes for his family to be together again for Christmas.

Coming home, staying home: ‘Apollo 13' and ‘Home Alone' among 25 films picked for national registry

But for the most part, the house looked about the same between 1990 until 2012, when the Abendshien family sold it. Other John Hughes movies filmed in the Chicago area include "The Breakfast Club," "She's Having a Baby," "Uncle Buck" and "Weird Science." Kevin's visit to Santa's workshop was filmed at Chestnut Court, adjacent to the Winnetka Village Hall, according to the Pioneer Press. The Grand Food Center along Green Bay Road is where Kevin shops for groceries, while the pharmacy he visits is along the same street. The basketball court was where the airplane cabin set was built, and the basement was actually constructed in the pool to accomodate a large number of water scenes.

“The Power of the Dog” ranch was purposefully built for the movie

In 2019, Netflix came out with a series called The Movies That Made Us that takes a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes action from famous films, including Home Alone. In that episode, some of the film's production crew share interesting details about filming, but they didn't share everything we wanted to know. Well, we did some research and found all the answers to your burning questions. Keep reading to find out some fun facts about the John Hughes movie, and impress your guests with this trivia the next time you sit down to watch it together.

Too bad, since the Abendshiens lived there for 20 years and we’re pretty sure their daughter would have loved to keep it for herself. The remaining scenes filmed in the McCallister house were recreated or duplicated on a soundstage built in the gymnasium of the former campus of New Trier Township High School. The red-brick, Georgian-style home sits on a half-acre lot and has about 4,200 square feet of living space. All in all, the house has five bedrooms, including a four-room master suite, which spans the entire west wing of the home, and three-and-a-half bathrooms. The airport sequence where Kevin’s family hurries to make their plane and the subsequent scenes at Paris Airport were all filmed at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. The primary filming location for ‘Home Alone’ is located over at 671 Lincoln Avenue in the charming village of Winnetka in Cook County, north of Chicago.

What are those ugly diamonds bolted onto the side of old buildings?

While Hollywood productions and TV series alike tend to use existing homes only for exterior shots (with interior scenes normally being shot on soundstages), quite a few scenes of the holiday flick were actually filmed on location. Because the house wasn’t actually big enough to use for filming, many of the interior scenes were instead filmed somewhere else. They were filmed at the New Trier Township High School, an abandoned school in the area.

"It looks different than the fans might expect (i.e. no plaid wallpaper)… but that's Hollywood!" Hopkins told Insider. "The images depicted at the time I sold the house, were how the house looked when it was filmed," she added. However, the famous, red-carpeted staircase that young Kevin McCallister sledded down before shooting out of the front door, and the living room, were shot inside the real home. The amazing scenes of Kevin fooling the burglars and coming up with hilarious techniques to injure them were filmed inside the township High School gym in Winnetka.

As the home is currently occupied and not available for sale or rent, the only way to get inside is if you know the owners. However, back in 2021, Airbnb offered fans a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stay at the real-life McCallister home. The stunning residence is a real home located in Winnetka, Illinois, about 20 miles from Chicago, and at the time, it was owned by the Abendshien family, who relocated to a makeshift apartment on the second floor of their house during filming.

“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. Home Sweet Home Alone, the 2021 reboot of the classic holiday movie, was mostly filmed in Canada. Max Mercer’s house is in Longueuil, Quebec, a popular suburb of Montreal located about 15 minutes away from downtown Montreal. The treehouse where Kevin escapes to during the film’s climax was constructed especially for the movie. However, many of the interior shots of the house, particularly the basement and the attic were recreated on set in the New Trier High School. Other filming locations in Winnetka include a Panera Bread Company establishment at 940 Greenbay Road, as well as the Hubbard Woods Metro Station in Gage Street.

The set team ultimately decided to build the entire interior of the home in the gymnasium of New Trier High School, also in Winnetka. 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.

The mansion was too small for all the crew to fit inside, explained director Chris Columbus, so they built an entire two-story set in the high school gym. In fact, the scene near the end of the film when Kevin goes into his neighbor's house was filmed in the old school pool, which made flooding its "basement" much easier. While the exterior of the property was used in the movie, many of the interior shots were filmed on a purpose-built, two-story set inside the gym of an abandoned school, New Trier Township High School, located in the town.

Other than that, there's no way to get inside unless you know the current owners. However, many fans still walk or drive by the house each year and take pictures of the exterior. If you really want to spend a night living out your own Kevin McCallister adventures, you can rent out a Home Alone–themed AirBnB in Dallas, Texas, for $247 a night. And with the revival of ’90s nostalgia and the trends that come with it, there’s no better time to do a deep dive into the Chicago-area home where it all began.

Master woodworker Sam Maloof and his carpenters designed and built this lovely, thoughtful home piece by piece in his on-site workshop; no two door openings are the same here, and each joint is a wonder of craftsmanship. A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Maloof has had his iconic rocking chairs shown at the Smithsonian; he also designed the chairs that were used on-camera at the history-changing Nixon/Kennedy debates. Visitors can see some of this furniture, as well as the wide-ranging collection of arts-and-craft pieces that he and his wife of 50 years, Alfreda, amassed together. The garden, which he tended, and the house are both open for tours; if you ask, you might be able to peek into the workshop, where he continued building until his death in 2009 at the age of 93. One noticeable difference between the interior of the real house and the 'Home Alone' one is the lack of red and green painted walls and furniture, a design choice that gained popularity following the film's release.