Living ‘Home Alone’: In memoir, former Winnetkan recalls experiences after giving house over to iconic film

In the fall of 1989, John Abendshien was living a quiet life on a trademark tree-lined street in Winnetka.

Then a film crew turned his home life on its head.

Film Director Chris Columbus and location manager Jacolyn Bucksbaum paid a visit to 671 Lincoln Ave., now better known as the “Home Alone” house, to ask Abendshien if they could use his house for the filming of a blockbuster Christmas movie.

By January 1990, Abendshien’s home and yard were filled with the bustling crew, cameras and actors that made the iconic holiday film possible.

Ahead of “Home Alone’s” 35th anniversary in November, Abendshien, a retired healthcare strategy and policy expert, will release his memoir, “Home, But Alone No More,” this fall. More details will be available on the book’s website. The book details how Abendshien’s family house became a holiday attraction and the unforgettable experiences that came alongside it.

“I realized that in just the strangest, most bizarre way, I’ve been given a life gift, and that’s a gift I want to share with people now,” Abendshien told The Record.

Over the past 35 years, Abendshien said he’s received countless questions about his house’s use in “Home Alone.” Now retired, Abendshien has time to sit down and compile all his answers into a book.

In the book, he said he wanted to share insights he has on the filming, the cast and crew, and why the film has become a Christmas classic.

For Abendshien, writing the memoir, which took about 18 months, has been a personal journey.

“I started thinking about a lot of the memories of what had occurred and what happened and when it happened, and the memories just started unfolding,” he said. “It’s amazing how you get that cascade effect. … When you really start to think about it, it all comes back to life.”

“Home Alone” was not the first film that came knocking on Abendshien’s door. Previously, Hughes Entertainment — the same company that produced “Home Alone,” and that legendary filmmaker John Hughes founded — asked if Abendshien would consider letting the company use his Evanston home for the filming of “Uncle Buck.” Abendshien, who was in the process of moving from Evanston to Winnetka, declined.

Surveying the North Shore for potential sets for “Home Alone,” Bucksbaum took note of Abendshien’s new Winnetka home and floated the idea by Columbus, Abendshien said. Columbus was on board and in early 1990 the Abendshiens signed on.

“People who knew me back then would say that I was not a likely candidate to have my house used as a movie location,” Abendshien said. “If you could find a poster child for the opposite of Hollywood, that would probably be me.”

But Abendshien said two factors pushed him to agree: a short term lease payment and “a little bit of FOMO,” aka Fear Of Missing Out.

From January to May 1990 there wasn’t a single day that movie personnel was not on his Winnetka property, Abendshien said.

In “Home, But Alone No More,” Abendshien details the positives this bustle brought, such as a familial bond that formed among him, the cast and the crew. He also talks the negatives, like “terrible, god-awful wallpaper” that was plastered over his former wife’s tasteful art deco choice.

During the weekend of “Home Alone’s” release in November 1990, Abendshien’s home attracted a new cast of characters. Abendshien said as he and his family sat and watched TV, gawkers lined the street peering into his now Hollywood-famous home.

Abendshien said he thought the crowds would die down, but year after year the onlookers kept coming. Eventually, Abendshien said he began to embrace connecting with people from all over the world, a prominent theme in his forthcoming memoir.

While Abendshien moved in 2012, the Georgian red-brick home remains a cinematic landmark, even as a stop on Christmastime tours with the Winnetka Historical Society. The home recently changed hands again in 2024.

“The home itself had become, in its own sense, a star of the movie,” Abendshien said.

Today, Abendshien and his second wife, Nancy, reside in a Lake Forest apartment. For Abendshien, writing his memoir has been a “fun journey,” reminding him of how saying “yes” to a difficult request changed his life.

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