Home Alone house up for sale for $7m, booby traps not included
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The house where Kevin McCallister battled two burglars in the 1990 film is on the market for the first time in more than a decade.
PHOTO: DAWN MCKENNA GROUP, 20TH CENTURY FOX
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NEW YORK – One of the most famous movie residences in the United States is up for sale.
The Home Alone (1990) house, in the Chicago suburbs, is on the market for US$5.25 million (S$7 million), according to a listing by property platform Zillow.
“It’s a chance to own a piece of cinematic history,” said the listing, which went live on May 24. The house was last sold in 2012 for US$1.59 million.
Built in 1921, the redbrick Georgian home is at 671 Lincoln Avenue, in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Illinois, among the most expensive neighbourhoods in the US, according to Realtor.com.
At 847 sq m, the house has four fireplaces, five bedrooms and six bathrooms. The listing was reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Parts of the house will be recognisable to fans of the classic Christmas film – notably its exterior, but also its foyer and the main staircase, where eight-year-old Kevin McCallister, played by American actor Macaulay Culkin, goes sledding.
The film crew worked at the house for four months in 1990, according to an interview published in Vanity Fair magazine, with the couple who owned the house at the time. The crew built an exterior staircase to the basement on which a burglar, played by American actor Daniel Stern, slips down in the film.
But because most of the interior sequences were filmed on sets built at a nearby high school, much of the house looks significantly different from how it is depicted in the film.
In one scene, for example, Kevin is sent to the attic. “The third floor? It’s scary up there,” he says.
In real life, the top floor features a light-filled bedroom as well as a bathroom with a bathtub. The renovated kitchen has an open-floor plan, with a sunroom attached to it, and the basement has a basketball court and home theatre.
After the film opened in November 1990, news of which house had been featured in the film travelled fast.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported in January 1991 that about 400 cars pulled up outside the house on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, according to the family that lived there at the time. Ever since, the house has attracted a stream of visitors who come by to take photos.
The film-makers returned to 671 Lincoln Avenue in 1991 to shoot a few scenes for the sequel Home Alone 2: Lost In New York (1992), reported Vanity Fair.
In 2021, up to four fans of Home Alone were allowed to spend one night at the McAllister family home as part of an Airbnb marketing campaign. American actor Devin Ratray, who played Kevin’s brother Buzz, welcomed guests to the house. NYTIMES
