Home Alone house to be restored to 90s look after modern makeover backlash

The mansion was recently purchased in January for $5.25 million

The new owners of the real-life house featured in the 1990 holiday classic Home Alone are restoring it to its former glory after a sleek, ultra-modern renovation sparked backlash from fans of the film.

The iconic Winnetka, Illinois, home — used as the McCallister family residence in Home Alone and its 1992 sequel Home Alone 2: Lost in New York — was purchased earlier this year for $5.25 million. The buyers are now in the midst of a renovation project aimed at recreating the warm, colorful interior seen in the original movie.

“Our vision is to bring back the warmth and just the love from the movie,” Scott Price, the project manager overseeing the renovation, told NBC5 Chicago in a recent interview. “There were so many great colors, and it just made you feel like family and like home, and we want to bring that magic back.”

The house underwent a major renovation in 2018 that replaced its cozy aesthetic with a bright, minimalist design — a change that was widely criticized by fans who felt the home had lost its character.

While Price did not say how long the interior renovation would take, he confirmed that some changes would also be made to the home’s exterior.

The Home Alone house in Winnetka, Illinois, was purchased in January for $5.25 million (anarchosyn/CC BY-SA 2.0)

The project manager in charge of the renovation says he plans on bringing back the ‘warmth’ and ‘love’ from the holiday classic (20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock)

The five-bedroom, six-bathroom mansion spans roughly 9,000 square feet and was originally built in 1921. It features four fireplaces, two laundry rooms, two hot tubs, a wet bar, a recreation area, a gym, a private movie theater and an indoor sports court.

The home’s exterior famously served as the McCallister family house in both Home Alone films.

John Abendshien, who owned the property at the time the movies were filmed, recently spoke to The Independent about what drew him to the house when he first saw it in 1989, before purchasing it for $875,000.

“I cannot explain it to this day, but when we pulled up and looked at it, something about that place just captured my heart,” Abendshien said. “For one thing, I really love natural light, and that home has an abundance of windows. I just liked the shape of it. True confession, we pretty much bought the house from the curb.”

The 'Home Alone' crew using potato flakes to simulate snow outside the Winnetka home (John Abendshien)

Although Abendshien said he sometimes felt like he was living in a “fishbowl” as the franchise gained popularity, he described that period as a blessing. He sold the home in 2012 for $1.6 million.

In the 35 years since, the tale of eight-year-old Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) defending his home from a pair of dim-witted robbers by any means necessary has cemented its status as a beloved Christmas staple. It is rewatched by millions of fans every year, for whom the grand McCallister house has become as familiar as their own homes.

To this day, hundreds of visitors come to the home each day, with roads often needing to be closed off during the holidays to deal with the serious traffic.