"Home Alone" house under contract after hitting the market a week before
The iconic north suburban home that served as the centerpiece for the 1990 holiday hit movie "Home Alone" appears to have found a new buyer after about a week on the market.
Realtor.com lists the property as "contingent," meaning that a sale is in the works. Typically, those contingencies include home inspections, appraisals, or the sale of the buyer's property. Once those contingencies are met, the sale can proceed to closing.
According to the listing, the house was renovated and expanded in 2018.
However, "the current owners took the utmost care in maintaining the architectural detail and integrity of the home's most memorable and recognizable spaces," including the foyer and entry staircase, which provided the backdrop for some of the movie's most memorable scenes of 8-year-old Kevin fending off a pair of bungling burglars by himself.
The "McAllister house" at 671 Lincoln Ave. in Winnetka was last on the market in 2012. It sold for $1.585 million, down from an asking price of $2.4 million. The people who bought it at that point are now asking $5.25 million. Details on the selling price were not available.
"Home Alone" was released just after Thanksgiving 1990.
John and Cynthia Abendshien moved into the 92-year-old house in 1988. They were the residents when "Home Alone" was filmed and decided to sell it 12 years ago to the current owners.
Many interior scenes were shot on a sound stage set up in the New Trier West High School gym in Northfield. Still, scenes centered on the main staircase and several interior rooms were actually shot inside the house, the website Moviefone reported back in 2012.
The Abendshiens also talked about their experience with the filming in a 2011 Coldwell Banker sales video.
"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," Cynthia Abendshie said in the video.
Writer and producer John Hughes – who died in 2009 at 59, was born in Lansing, Michigan, and grew up in suburban Detroit – but moved to Northbrook with his family at 12. He was famous for filming in the Chicago area, particularly the North Shore suburbs.
Besides the "Home Alone" house, Samantha's house in "Sixteen Candles" is located at 3022 Payne St. in Evanston.
Ferris Bueller's high school is Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook.
The high school in "The Breakfast Club" was actually Maine North High School in Des Plaines, which was already closed when the movie was filmed.
