“Home Alone ”House's Former Owner Remembers Living in Iconic Home During Filming
- - “Home Alone ”House's Former Owner Remembers Living in Iconic Home During Filming
Marina WattsDecember 23, 2025 at 10:11 PM
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20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock ; Disney+
Macaulay Culkin in 'Home Alone' (1990) ; The house in 'Home Alone' (1990). -
The former owner of the Home Alone house, John Abendshien, wrote a memoir about living in the house while the movie was filming in 1990
The five-bedroom, six-bathroom house is almost as famous as the movie itself
His book, Home But Alone No More, is available for purchase
Plenty have dreamed of living in the Home Alone house, but one family lived it while the movie was filming!
John Abendshien, who is the former owner of the Home Alone house in Winnetka, Ill., wrote about the experience of living in the house during production in 1990..
His memoir, titled Home But Alone No More, is filled with anecdotes about the holiday movie and how it changed his life.
While shooting Home Alone, he and his family didn't leave the property. "We had a large master bedroom suite that we converted into an apartment," he explained in an interview with ABC 7 Chicago.
Moviestore/Shutterstock
Macaulay Culkin and Joe Pesci in 'Home Alone' (1990)
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"As long as we kept out of the camera eye...we were free to roam and watch scenes as they were being filmed."
After filming wrapped, fans would come by to see the home. At first, John found it overwhelming, but over time, he grew to appreciate the "joy" the house clearly brought passersby. "That was contagious, and I started to feel it too."
"Bottom line, my feelings today: I have serendipitously been given a gift, and I want to share the gift," he told the outlet.
Shutterstock; Abendshien Associates, Inc.
The five-bedroom, six-bathroom house was built in 1921 and was most recently on the market in 2024. It sold in December that year for over $5.5 million.
The Chicago-area home boasts over 9,000 square feet and was owned by the Abendshiens until 2012. It was sold that year for $1.585 million, per Mansion Global and renovated in 2018.
Disney+
Macaulay Culkin in 'Home Alone' (1990)
John's daughter, Laura Abendshien, also reminisced about living in the now-famous house during the holiday movie's shoot. "We stayed in the house pretty much the entire period, which was about four or five months," she said during a 2020 appearance on the U.K. talk show This Morning.
"In order to avoid appearing onscreen, we would have to crawl around the window line from room to room."
Disney+
Interior of the house in 'Home Alone'
"[The actors] would spend time in the house when they weren't filming their scenes," she added. "Macaulay Culkin used my room to study with his tutor and his brother [Kieran], wasn't filming as much, so he would just hang out in my room."
Like her father John, Laura was amazed by the film's impact — and how popular it made her house.
"It was very surreal when the movie came out and all of a sudden it's holiday season in 1990 and it was an endless row of cars and people wanted to see the house and take photographs and that was very new to us, but we grew to love it and we shared the magic of the movie."
After a renovation in recent years that stripped much of the character fans loved in the film from the property in favor of an all-white, modern look, it was recently revealed that the new owner plans to return the home to its former glory.
"Our vision is to bring back the warmth and just the love from the movie," Scott Price, the project manager overseeing the current renovation commissioned by the new owners, told NBC5 Chicago,
"There was so many great colors and it just made you feel like family and like home and we want to bring that magic back," he added.
Home But Alone No More is available for purchase.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
