The McCallister family house: Home Alone (1990) filming location

The McCallister family house: Home Alone (1990) filming location

Address: 671 Lincoln Avenue, Winnetka, IL 60093, USA

Coordinates: 42.1097° N, 87.7336° W (more precisely: 42.1097127, -87.7336142 – iconic mansion with white façade and columns)

This is the house where Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) defends himself against the burglars – the famous family residence from the 1990 Christmas classic Home Alone. The iconic scenes with the snowy yard, decorated Christmas trees and all the traps in full swing were shot right here, in a Chicago suburb. The house still stands and attracts thousands of fans every year, especially in December, when locals and tourists decorate it with holiday lights, recreating the movie atmosphere. Remember, though: it is private property – photos only from the street, do not enter the yard, owners ask to respect their privacy!

Interesting facts about the filming and the house

After the film, it inevitably became one of the most recognizable and famous houses in the USA.

Sold in 2012 for 1.585 million dollars, and in 2024 – already for approximately 5.25 million!

Fans still come there to feel the movie atmosphere. This is definitely one of the most visited tourist spots as a permanent cultural object.

Not all interior scenes were shot here. Exterior shots and some staircase scenes were filmed in the real house, but all the rest of the interior magic (kitchen, living room, Kevin’s room) was built in an abandoned high school – New Trier Township High School in the same Winnetka. The school gym was turned into the McCallister family palace.

Address: 385 Winnetka Ave, Winnetka, IL 60093, USA

Coordinates: 42.1075° N, 87.7214° W (more precisely: 42.1075, -87.7214 – now an active school, but at the time of filming some rooms were empty).

“Little Nero’s Pizza” delivered to Kevin is a fictional brand, but all the pizzas came from real Pizza Hut.

The name is not random: Emperor Nero “burned Rome”, Kevin “burns” the burglars – subtle subtext for more intelligent viewers.

In the famous scene the spider crawls across the burglar Harry’s (Joe Pesci) face.

The spider on Harry’s face is a real tarantula, Joe Pesci’s scream is 100 % genuine (he is panically afraid of spiders).

The uncle who says “A lovely cheese pizza, just for me” – director Chris Columbus himself in a cameo role.

Originally the film was supposed to be titled Home Alone in Hell (“Alone in Hell”), but the studio got scared that parents might not take their children to a Christmas movie with the word “hell” in the title.

Kevin’s plan drawn with the red string is a real architectural drawing from the props department – you can see it in close-up.

“Keep the change, ya filthy animal” comes from the completely fictional movie Angels with Filthy Souls, shot only for Home Alone. Its sequel appears in part 2.

Plaza Hotel lobby scene (part 2)

Address: 768 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019, USA (at Central Park South and Grand Army Plaza)

Coordinates: 40.7647° N, 73.9746° W (more precisely: 40.7647, -73.9746 – legendary luxury hotel with a view of Central Park)

The moment when Hollywood gets politics – the Trump episode and its “erasure”

In the second film (Lost in New York, 1992) there is a short but memorable scene in the Plaza Hotel lobby – Kevin asks directions from Donald Trump (the hotel owner at the time), who replies: “Down the hall and to the left.”

Trump demanded to appear in the frame as a condition for filming in his hotel. Director Chris Columbus later said he wanted to cut the scene, but New York test audiences were so delighted by the appearance of a real person that brings the events closer to reality that it was kept. By the way, a similar technique was successfully used in other films – for example, the famous boxer Mike Tyson and his tiger episode in The Hangover, which, knowing Tyson’s explosive character, adds an extra dose of harsh and especially comic reality.

When Trump entered big politics, some TV channels started cutting this scene. It was first done by Canadian CBC back in 2014 (officially – to save time for commercials), but the real scandal broke out at Christmas 2019: viewers noticed that the episode looks extremely silly – Kevin suddenly talks to empty air. The interlocutor had been erased from the frame. Trump called it the “destruction” of viewers’ beloved Christmas movie, CBC claimed the decision was not political. In the original version (Blu-ray, Disney+, etc.) Trump is still in place – the frame disappears only in certain TV broadcasts.

What happened is a vivid example of what happens when politics starts dictating pop culture content.