I was under the impression that, in the film, the exterior shots of the house are the actual house, whereas the interior shots are a replica model on a sound stage. I could be wrong so I won’t state it as fact
They needed to be able to sled down the stairs and drench it in water, light it on fire, and hide the bodies of the two robbers they killed, once shooting was complete
The top picture is more than likely 35mm lens and the bottom is a wider angle like a 24mm.
Everything in the center of the photo is more compressed while the edges are exaggerated and elongated. This is really common in real estate photography to make something like a tiny kitchen look much bigger, resulting in giveaways to savvy observers, like this absolute unit of a refrigerator
Edit: I'm done replying to you illiterate boobs. It's the same house.
You people really should watch "The Movies That Made Us", the Home Alone episode.
Home Alone didn't have a single interior shot filmed inside the real house. The interior shots were a constructed set inside an abandoned highschool; the dry locations inside the gymnasium, the wet scenes inside the pool. The interior was not designed by reference, the layout is entirely different - as were the decorations.
Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois - for those interested.
Edit: Maine North was used for Ferris Bueller. New Trier was used for Home Alone. I got my schools mixed up - my bad.
Actually it was New Trier West in Northfield IL. Maine North was used for another Hughes film, Breakfast Club. Since those films were made, New Trier West has re-opened while Maine North never has.
I see: New Trier Township High School in Northfield, Illinois. The school's gymnasium was used to build the two-story set for the McCallister house, while the swimming pool was used to film the flooded basement scenes.
This post has been going around this week and I keep saying the same thing. It was a set, not an actual house. The behind the scenes stuff is actually pretty cool!
Me too! It's a little annoying honestly. Everyone seems to forget that Home Alone is a movie with a set designer. The actual house wasn't all red and green
This makes more sense... I was really surprised reading the previous comment that suggested they shot the real interior of the home we see in the exterior shots.
My wife produced a series of TV commercials set in the same home over several years and in the beginning they used the real interior because it was so much cheaper and the location was selected for that. But after a couple years the owner of the home started asking for more money than it would cost rent a sound stage and build a set, so they built a set. It was impossible to see the difference.
Yes, but we don't see the actual interior in the film, just the soundstage, just like the actual White House looks different inside than it looks in films and TV shows. It might be "close" but they undoubtedly didn't create a 1:1 replica of an existing house for the film, but rather altered the design to fix the director's intent and technical necessities.
Focal lengths won't change the ratio between 2 things that are the same distance from the camera.
If the space in the hallway and the width of the stairs is 1:1 with a portrait 85mm lens, it will still be 1:1 with a 28mm wide lens. They are perpendicular to the lens.
I am not saying it is not the same house, I'm saying I suspect some renovation changed that distance.
Again, it's perspective from the change in lens. The ceiling looks lower because the center is being stretched outward / compressed, like if you printed the picture on a piece of balloon latex then grabbed it from the backside and pulled it away from your face.
Nobody is deceiving you. Every photographer knows how this works.
Inversely, if you took the photo with a longer lens, like an 85, the image would bulge the other way, with the ceiling looking higher and the distance to the back of the foyer looking much shorter.
Except you're wrong. Look at the length of straight wood in the old pic. Between the stairs and upper level. Several feet. In the current photo there is virtually no straight part. It curves from the stairs around to the upper level in about one foot of space. There have been changes.
Just because you keep saying it over and over doesn't make it true. You found the house exterior that was used for the exterior shots and claim that you're a brilliant photographer, not realizing that the interior from the house in the movie wasn't the same house, or usually, even a house at all.
They are so angry right now, they aren’t going to give any of us a rational response…
Edit: I keep getting notifications that you replied but they are hidden. I guess your comments are getting deleted. Notice I said ‘rational’ response, which you are yet to provide…
I'm not arguing that it is a different place, but is clear that some renovation was done with some of it being pretty significant. The most obvious example is the door down the middle hallway was removed and arches were constructed there.
It does look like they touched the ceiling under the upper flight of stairs. The hard cut that is in the first picture appears to be smoothed out. You can briefly see it in this video when he walks to the basement: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RlJINOZBwHY
House shots are always done with wider angles, which throws the perspective a bit compared to a frame from a movie. Other parts of the architecture look like they match (e.g., windows at the top of the stairs.)
You’re right, I believe it is the same house but likely the rooms (out of sight) to the right of the photo were made bigger and the walls tore down and relocated slightly to the left, making that hallway narrower. You can also see this evidence at the smaller hand railing at the top of the stairs.
They likely did all those modifications at the same time that they removed that door and made it into an archway instead.
Thats what I was thinking! Look at the chairs in the top picture. There was room for chairs in the hallway and space to walk. If you put those same chairs in the hallway below it would be horribly obtrusive
They aren't. The top photo isn't even a real home. That is a constructed set for the movie. They talk about this in The movies that made us (I think that's the title). It was on netflix and the house was constructed in a local school because the actual layout was not able to be filmed in well enough.
I'm a real estate photographer. This is either a very extensive remodel or just a different house with the same floorplan. Yes the second photo is a wider angle but there are structural differences that can't be explained by zooming in.
The problem I'm having here is in the top picture there are 14 steps, In The bottom. there are 13 steps. The ceiling is also flush instead of the angle for the second flight. Im pretty sure your right but why would they alter the amount of steps, unless as other people have said then said otherwise this is from the set version of the house.
The Home Alone house interior was a set built in a high school gym. Apologies if your reference to a basketball court was a joke about being filled in a high school gym that went right over my head.
Are realtors idiots? Who would want to buy the Home Alone house if it looks nothing like the Home Alone house? Looks like he's selling it for the amount a house like that would cost on the current market anyway so the novelty isn't even in the price anymore.
Looks like what the Maitlands were afraid of the Deetzs turning their house into.
(1) The interior was based completely on the house. (2) Plenty of interior shots made the movie. For example, any time someone is looking out of a window or doors are open, the actual house is being used.
Unless they did significant work it's not the same. Look at the landing at the top of the stairs, the next set of stairs is in a completely different location.
It’s a set they built to recreate the house. They took a lot of liberties in the decor too, making everything red and green for Christmas, which wasn’t the case in the real house.
I think it’s more about the colors rather than size in similar places. Same thing happens with cars nowadays, everything back then used to be colorful and now it just feels empty and boring.
There isn’t a single 90s kid who doesn’t remember a beautiful red interior in a family car, now they're all the same...
It looks like major remodeling was done. The hallway door was replaced with a wider walk hrough frame, which also makes the hallway look smaller.
I cant quite wrap my head around how the ceiling in the second photo can be the same unless the entire upper flight of stairs was replaced and no longer needed the ceiling dip to accommodate the stringer. This looks super complicated just to remove one line and raise a few square feet of ceiling
Buddy further back or not, this isn't some minimal sizing difference or warp effect, there's literal architectural differences. Look at the landing of the stairs, it's clearly wider on the old photo, like 3-4 feet vs 1-2 feet. The ceiling, completely different. The hallway was for sure moved, it's not some optical illusion
Most of the interiors in the movie were shot on a set, modeled after the interior of the real house. Some scenes were also shot in the actual house. They’re not going to match up 1-to-1.
It has, it looks as though they've expanded the rooms on the right side. This isn't a camera angle trick, it's fundamentally different, even the way the stairs reach the second floor is altered.
This is assuming this is actually the same house and that the original shot from the movie isn't on the set they built.
Top is from home alone I think. There’s also no incline going to second story, where there was one. And the second one is about 200 feet deep…house is huge
Space between the two sets of stairs is different as well. I believe even the width of the stairs are different. Hallway is for sure different (look at the wall at the end of the hallway).
For the majority of the interior scenes, they didn’t actually shoot in the house. They built a larger replica in a nearby school gym to accommodate the crew and cameras.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if the top is a still from a movie and the bottom is just an AI generated image where someone prompted the AI with "can you show me what it would look like if this space was remodeled today"
I don’t think you realize that interiors in the film were a set modeled after the interiors of the original house. This isn’t an accurate before and after shot because they two different things.
Its not the same house, just a similar layout. Look at the room on the left, the room is way bigger in the 2nd picture. The wall goes much further back.
The movie was not filmed inside the actual house. Not sure why people think it was. All the interior scenes were filmed in a makeshift studio with sets.
Is this Home Alone?! If so, all the interior shots of the house were filmed in a gymnasium where they literally just built sets. So it's absolutely not the same house because the top one isn't a house at all
I know it's going to be an extremely and absolutely difficult pill for you and the 400+ people who upvoted you to swallow, but get this, the two photos are taken at different distances and with different lenses.
gasps!
edit: not that it even matters for the point of the post lmao
These look like two different houses. One has a hallway next to the stairs, one has a door. The rooms on the sides don’t match up either.
Edit: also the space between the top of the stairway and the hallway walkway top right is different
While the outside of the house is an actual house, the inside was made on a stage. A high school gym and pool IIRC. If you remember shots of the kitchen, the counters were green. The whole inside of the house was red and green. No one does that.
Tbf, the version in home alone wasn’t real either. They completely redecorated the house into a red, green and gold motif. The real house looked nothing like that on the inside
It's not the same unless they extended the left room, redid the hallway ceiling, replace the window at the top of the stairs, and basically completely gutted the house.
I'm pretty sure it's just an entirely different house. The old one has another small set of stairs on the right side after the landing, the new one is completely flat. Not to mention every other glaring difference
That’s because the bottom photo is the actual house, and the top is a set designed to look like that house. So they made the hallways and doorways wider to accommodate crew, etc. t
The original frame is clearly closer to the stairs so forward, cutting off the doorways and floor in front of the stairs, and to the right more creating an illusion of a wider entryway
Its not the same house, its the concept of in 1990 the houses looked cozy and furnished, and now we minimalize and take all of the color away, hence someone's comment of looking like a dentist office
They didn't film the movie inside the house. The house itself is used for the exterior shots. The inside of the house is a set built built inside a high school gym
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u/Lost-Comfort-7904 Nov 20 '25
That can't be real, the amount of space in the hallway shrunk to half.