'Home Alone' House Sells For $1.585 Million
WINNETKA, Ill. (CBS) -- The Winnetka house made famous in the movie "Home Alone" has been sold for $1.585 million.
CBS 2 has confirmed that the sale of the house at 671 Lincoln Ave. in Winnetka closed Thursday. Coldwell Banker real estate brokers will not identify the buyer.
The asking price had been $2.4 million.
Current owners John and Cynthia Abendshien moved into the 92-year-old house in 1988, and were the residents when "Home Alone" was filmed. They decided to sell last year, despite the weak housing market.
"Home Alone" was released just after Thanksgiving 1990. All the shots in the kitchen, main staircase, and windowed first-floor landing were shot inside the house, according to the Web site MovieFone.
But the décor of the house seen in the movie was not chosen by the Abendshiens. The filmmakers papered over the walls to provide a more holiday-oriented feel, MovieFone reported. They also built a tree house that was torn down after the filming, the Web site reported.
The Abendshiens talked about their experience with the filming in a Coldwell Banker sales video posted last year.
"We for example learned that if snow doesn't bounce off your shoulders or your head, it's potato flakes that they're blowing in your hair," said Cynthia Abendshien.
Writer Hughes, who died in 2009 at the age of 59, was born in Lansing, Mich., and grew up in suburban Detroit, but moved to Northbrook with his family at the age of 12.
"John Hughes had a real interest in filming in community settings. He, I understand, grew up in the North Shore, and really wanted his sets and backgrounds to have a real world; a true neighborhood and a true-home-type ambience," John Abendshien said in the Coldwell Banker video.
Meanwhile, there is another famous house on the North Shore that is also on the market, and the asking price is more than 12 times as high. Michael Jordan's longtime home and estate, at 2700 Point Dr. in Highland Park, went on the market last week for $29 million.
