Get in the holiday mood with a stay in ‘Home Alone’ house through Airbnb
CHICAGO — First, it was the Pie House in Deerfield, then it was Scottie Pippen’s Highland Park home for the Summer Olympics. Now it’s the McCallisters’. An overnight stay at Winnketka’s “Home Alone” house will give up to four guests the chance to relive their favorite scenes from the 1990 holiday classic on Dec. 12 for $25, plus fees and taxes, through Airbnb.
The one-night-only stay will be available for booking at 1 p.m. Dec. 7, so it’ll be up to one family or group with fast fingers to snag the visit. The home has been designed to look as similar to the movie that made Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister character a household name.
Devin Ratray, the actor who played Kevin’s older brother Buzz, will welcome guests into the McCallister residence via Zoom.
“We may all be older and wiser now, but we’re never too old for holiday high jinks,” “Buzz” said in a statement. “So this year, spend the holidays not-so-home-alone at my parents’ house.”
When guests step through the door, they’ll take in the bold wallpaper, red carpet runner and pictures of Buzz on the wall. Bask in the living room’s holiday ambiance with a Christmas tree, stockings hung over the fireplace — the whole gambit. Visitors will sleep in Kevin’s parents’ room —
complete with four-poster bed, father’s aftershave, vintage clock radio and old school, big box television. (Should there be kids, a second guest bedroom is available as well.)
But the experience will mirror
the movie in more ways than one. Empty paint cans stand ready for booby-trap setting, ’90s-era junk food, including Chicago’s finest pizza and a candlelit dinner of highly nutritious Kraft macaroni and cheese and a meet-and-greet
with Buzz’s pet tarantula, Axl.
Visitors will also get to view “Home Sweet Home Alone,” wherein Ratray reprises his role, and take home a Lego Ideas “Home Alone” kit as a memento.
Airbnb reps said they tried to figure out the physics of how the sled scene down the steps would work, but opted to have a potential sledding excursion planned instead, a safer option. A member of Buzz’s “McCallister Security” team will arrange meals.
The suburban home remains an attraction to this day. One just has to sit on the Winnetka street for a brief time before people pull out cameras to take pictures of the “Home Alone” house, making it ideal for a nostalgic holiday stay.
Airbnb has done a number of pop-culture residences, including Carrie Bradshaw’s New York apartment from “Sex and the City,” plus Barbie’s Dreamhouse in Malibu, Calif., and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” house in Los Angeles.
In honor of the first-ever stay at the McCallister home, Airbnb will make a one-time donation to Chicago’s La Rabida Children’s Hospital, which is dedicated to maintaining and improving the quality of life for patients with complex conditions, disabilities and chronic illness.