Holiday film lovers know well the house made famous in the movie "Home Alone." The residence next door also made a small appearance in the 1990 picture, though it has another claim to fame.
The property at 681 Lincoln Ave. in Winnetka, Illinois, attracts some attention for being the fictional home of Old Man Marley, who is initially portrayed in the movie as a scary “shovel slayer” before turning out to be a family man who protects the boy next door from marauding burglars.
Despite its movie role, the six-bedroom, three-story house, which is listed at $3.8 million, deserves to be recognized more for the architect who built it, said the seller's listing agent, Annika Valdiserri of @properties. The architect, Benjamin Marshall, is known for building several iconic Chicago buildings in the early 20th century, including the Drake, Blackstone and Edgewater Beach hotels.
“The grandness of the house certainly was his style,” said Valdiserri. “It’s such an architectural dream. Whoever is going to buy it is going to be someone who loves older homes.”
The house is currently privately offered but will be on the market at the end of January, she said.
At just under 5,000 square feet, according to Cook County property records, the house is good-sized, with large living and family rooms. But the lot it sits on is more notable for the neighborhood at two-thirds of an acre. Valdiserri suspects the house, which dates from 1898, was designed before many of the homes across the road that have more narrow street frontages. The home is set back a good distance from the street and has a large backyard.
That spaciousness gave the sellers, who have lived in the house since 2003 and raised children there, an easy escape if needed from the "Home Alone" tourists on the front sidewalk. The current residents also loved how easy it was for them to walk to restaurants and coffee shops in the town center and nearby Lake Michigan beaches, Valdiserri said.
The sellers made a number of improvements to the house in the past seven years, such as a new roof and copper gutters, according to Valdiserri. The backyard includes a pool, a half-basketball court and a putting green.
The better-known house next door has traded hands three times in the past two decades. The most recent sale was in May 2024, although the closing has been delayed until next month, Valdiserri said, because the sellers wanted to celebrate Christmas in the house one more time.
In recent years during the month of December, the town of Winnetka has had limited traffic on the block in front of the two houses to one direction, the agent said. That’s in part because the number of visiting movie buffs seems to have increased. But Valdiserri emphasized that the owners’ decision to sell was related to their retirement, not to any change in the neighborhood.
“I think it has been crazier these last five or 10 years,” Valdiserri said. “It’s always been a sight for some people, but now there’s constantly 20 or 30 people outside the 'Home Alone' house. But I don’t think anyone minds it, because everyone just loves the movie and how it portrays Winnetka.”
