Fans still flock to see the Home Alone house, but watch out for the neighbours | Canada Voices

Shortly before Home Alone became a Christmas movie classic in the holiday season of 1990, the striking, Georgian-style red-brick dwelling on 671 Lincoln Avenue in the affluent residential Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Ill., was already drawing curious crowds of visitors.

Months earlier, Linda Martin, a long-time neighbour, spotted a group of teenage girls standing behind a barricade across the street on the inaugural day of filming, aiming to catch a glimpse of the big Hollywood camera crew circling around the sprawling house (and perhaps Macaulay Culkin, the young star of the film).

“That’s when it first started,” said Martin, who still lives across the street from the famous house. “Then the crowds just never ended.”

Over the past 34 years, tourists have continuously flocked to Winnetka to experience movie history the same way they would visit the Windy City’s other attractions like Millennium Park or Wrigley Field. (671 Lincoln Ave. even has its own Tripadvisor page). Crowds arrive all year round, but peak during the holidays – Martin estimates an average of 150 visitors per day leading up to Christmas.

“There was a man that came from Poland, had a layover or something, and he rented a car and came out and saw it,” said Joanie White, who along with her husband, Herb, lived across the street from the house for 50 years before moving out last year.

Some nostalgic fans come to see the home’s front door where the fictional, crafty eight-year-old Kevin McCallister (played by Culkin) froze the steps to prevent a planned robbery by a pair of inept burglars. Or to view the towering symmetrical glass windows where Kevin staged a fake bustling holiday party inside.

But most make the trek to the Home Alone house to take selfies and photos, channeling a cliché image: Kevin’s signature pose with both hands on his face in which the visitors replicate, “at least half the time” Martin, a local real estate agent, says.

“It’s bizarre that people still have an interest in this stuff,” she added.

Transcendent, timeless and familiar, Home Alone (directed by John Hughes) grossed nearly US$480-million at the box office and is a constant fixture on TV and streaming services each December. It has also provided international fame to the film’s defining location.

“Would anyone know about the tiny village of Winnetka if it weren’t for the Home Alone house?” asked Cassandra Bayna, a former neighbour, who lived next door.

Being a part of cinema history has been, at times, a burden for the neighbours on the otherwise sleepy street.

“I remember we had crowds, really a lot, I would say very soon after the movie came out,” White said. “I don’t know how people found out.”

While intel of the Home Alone house location was once restricted to locals and die-hard fans in the pre-Internet era, crowds surged to new levels as Google and social media amplified Winnetka’s worst kept secret.

Among the neighbours’ gripes for inconsiderate visitors: double parking on the street and resident driveways; leaving trash; trespassing on the neighbours’ lawn; and standing on the street blocking traffic – often to set up their tripods.

“They always say, ‘well, we’ll only be there for 10 seconds,’” Martin said with a slight hint of annoyance. “It’s never just 10 seconds.”

Nor is it always predictable or innocent. In the 1990s, visitors would approach the front door and peek through the windows. Even when the house’s current owners installed an iron gate around the premises, some fans would scale the gates or fences to improve their photo-ops.

The current owners, in recent years, installed a surveillance camera system and changed the home’s curbside view by removing its circular driveway to increase privacy and deter fans. Police and private security cars occasionally circle the neighbourhood. And the entire Lincoln Ave. is not visible on Google Street View.

“I know the people that live there now – they’re moving – they never liked it,” White said. The famous residence was placed on the market in May for US$5.25-million, and the sale is “pending”, according to a listing on Zillow. “The wife of the owner told me, ‘we will be living in the rear of the house,’ because they couldn’t stand looking out the front windows and seeing the people gawking. That bothered them.”

The crowds are still coming daily and by the dozens. Illegally double parking. Leaning on the front gate. And making TikTok reels.

For every grievance that comes with living adjacent to the Home Alone house, the neighbours have experienced an equal amount of fun – sometimes inspiring – moments.

White remembers Culkin singing “Happy Birthday” to a 92-year-old neighbour during production. She recalls the crew using fake snow during filming, and returning months later when a real snow storm hit to shoot the pivotal Christmas morning scene (her husband documented the sequence with his VHS camcorder from their living room window).

“Living across from there was our pleasure,” said White, who along with her husband, now live in a nearby senior community. “We will never forget it. It was a wonderful memory.”

Among the visitors she has come across on her street, Martin has met Marines and Ukrainian refugees – all who have found joy in visiting the house. A trumpet player stops by frequently during the holiday season to perform the movie’s theme song Somewhere in My Memory by John Williams.

“Sometimes it’s kind of fun,” Martin said of her fan interactions. “We just talk about the movie and what we saw. They always want to know about what the burglars were like.”

The neighbourhood crowds provided some memorable moments for Bayna’s family, especially her son. He used his entrepreneurial spirit to his advantage by setting up a hot cocoa stand, capitalizing on the foot traffic. “It was a really great gig while he had it, he would make several thousand dollars over the holidays,” she said.

So far this holiday season, the neighbours have signs up in front of their houses encouraging visitors to make a contribution online to the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

This might be the final Christmas the current owners will live in the home, which might explain why the property is looking more festive. And more inviting. Decorative white lights wrap around the trees and the original white columns up front where the infamous Wet Bandits once failed to gain entry. Two new gigantic shiny red ornaments that read “Merry” and “Christmas” sit neatly on the manicured lawn.

“I hear the new owners are superfans of the movie,” the former neighbour Bayna said. “And it is the top reason why they bought it.”