Home Alone house is up for sale for the second time since filming began

WINNETKA, Illinois (CBS) – The iconic northern suburban home that served as the setting for the 1990 Christmas hit Home Alone is for sale.

The last time the “McAllister House” at 671 Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka was for sale in 2012, It was sold for $1.585 million – from an asking price of $2.4 million. The people who bought it then are now asking $5.25 million.

According to Vanity Fair, the red brick Georgian-style home dates back to 1920. It first gained notoriety beyond the North Shore in 1974 – 16 years before it became the “Home Alone” house – when its newly renovated kitchen made it into the September issue of Better Homes & Gardens magazine, Vanity Fair reported.

Vanity Fair reported that then-owners Carolyn and Kully Rohlen remodeled the kitchen so they could host regular soup parties and can home-grown tomatoes on a kitchen island.

When the house became Home Alone, the Rohlens no longer owned it. John and Cynthia Abendshien moved into the house in 1988 and lived there while Home Alone was being filmed.

“Home Alone” was released in theaters shortly after Thanksgiving 1990.

Most of the interior scenes were filmed on a recording studio in the gymnasium of New Trier West High School in Northfield, but the scenes involving the main staircase and several interior rooms were actually filmed inside the house, the website MovieFone reported in 2012.

The decor of the house featured in the film was not chosen by the owners at the time. The filmmakers wallpapered the walls to create a more Christmassy feel, MovieFone reported. They also built a tree house, which was demolished after filming.

The Abendshiens also spoke about their filming experience in a 2011 Coldwell Banker sales video.

“For example, we learned that if the snow isn't bouncing off your shoulders or your head, it's potato flakes blowing into your hair,” Cynthia Abendshie said in the video.

Vanity Fair reported that the Abendshiens barricaded themselves in the master bedroom on the second floor of the house while filming took place elsewhere.

Her daughter Lauren told the magazine how she picked up coffee cups full of candy from the food service stand and met the stars for the shoot. The family also watched scenes shot right in their home – including one in which Macaulay Culkin's Kevin character slides down the stairs in the house and exits through the front door, Vanity Fair reported. The magazine pointed out that this actually required a ramp on the banister and a stunt double, not Culkin himself.

Writer and producer John Hughes – who died in 2009 at age 59 – was born in Lansing, Michigan, and grew up in the Detroit suburbs – but moved to Northbrook with his family at age 12. He was famous for filming in the Chicago area, and particularly in the North Shore suburbs.

In addition to the house in Home Alone, Samantha's house in Adults Only is located at 3022 Payne Street in Evanston, Ferris Bueller's high school is actually Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, and the high school in The Breakfast Club was actually Maine North High School in Des Plaines – which had already closed by the time the film was shot and is now used as the district headquarters of the Illinois State Police and offices of other state agencies.

“John Hughes had a real interest in filming in community settings. He grew up on the North Shore, as far as I know, and he really wanted his sets and backgrounds to reflect a real world; a real neighborhood and a real homey atmosphere,” John Abendshien said in the 2011 Coldwell Banker video.

It was the Abendshiens who sold the house in 2012 to the current owners, who are now selling the house themselves.

In 2021, Airbnb also rented the house for one night in December.