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A red brick Georgian mansion known by children all over the world as Kevin McCallister’s home is back on the market after 12 years for $5.25 million.
Tim and Trisha Johnson, who are selling the property with the assistance of Katie Moor and Dawn McKenna of Coldwell Banker Realty, told The Wall Street Journal it’s not unusual for fans of Home Alone to stop by the house in Winnetka, Illinois, for a photo or to recreate their favorite scenes from the movie.
“Sometimes we’ll hear the Kevin scream,” Trisha told The WSJ. “It’s a lot of fun to see people as excited as they are, just to see my house.”
The couple purchased the home in 2012 for $1.585 million, according to property records. At that time, the home had already been altered a bit from how it appears in the 1990 film starring Macaulay Culkin, in which Culkin’s character gets left behind when his family goes on vacation to France over Christmas.
Four years after taking ownership of the property, the Johnsons did an extensive renovation of their own, finishing and expanding the basement, adding a home theater and sports court and reconfiguring parts of the house.
The home was originally built in the 1920s and spans about 5,700 square feet on half an acre of land.
When the Johnsons were house hunting all those years ago, Trisha confided to Tim that she had always dreaming of having a home like the red brick Georgian featured in Home Alone. “At the time, neither of us knew it was in Illinois, let alone in one of the towns we were considering,” she told The WSJ. “We found out that it was in Winnetka when our agent added it to our list of homes to see.”
When the couple did their renovation, they left some crucial features intact that are part of iconic scenes from Home Alone, like the front door and the central staircase that Kevin sleds down. “That was in the movie and it’s classic,” Trisha said. “We didn’t want to take that out or touch it in any way.”
The theater, which features seven custom seats and a bar, is also home to a Lego replica of the house the Johnsons built and a large Kevin Lego figure that Lego offered the couple. They will leave both with the house when they sell.
The couple decided to let go of the property now to take advantage of the luxury inventory crunch, despite their love of the home, Trisha told The WSJ.
Listing agent Katie Moor said, “Each year, we seem to have more buyers looking and inventory is so slim.”
The median sale price of a home in Winnetka was $1.4 million in April, down 4 percent year over year, according to Redfin. The real estate company said the market is “somewhat competitive,” with some homes receiving multiple offers and the average property selling for 4 percent above asking.
“I’m in a multiple-offer situation now on a $4 million house, and that’s not uncommon,” Moor added.
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