Following its 1990 debut, Home Alone quickly became a Christmas staple — best enjoyed during the winter season with a fresh cup of hot cocoa. But there's one lingering question that has kept fans of the classic up at night: is the McCallister family absolutely loaded? I mean, let's face it, that house has enough bedrooms for a small army.
The New York Times finally got an answer after consulting with economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and people involved in the making of the movie.
“In 1990, the house was affordable only for the top 1 percent of Chicago household incomes, and that would still be the case today, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago," the New York Times wrote. "The home would have been affordable to a household with an income of $305,000 in 1990 (about $665,000 in 2022).”
The economists continued on to explain that this red brick mansion, which is an actual house located in the Chicago suburbs, would only have been affordable to the top one percent of Chicago household incomes in 1990. And frankly, not much has changed. To date, Zillow estimates the same house at nearly $2.4 million, which would still only be accessible to the top one percent of Chicago buyers.
Suddenly, it's making a lot more sense why the film's gullible thieves, Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), were so hellbent on robbing the McCallister household. In the movie, Harry refers to the expensive property as the "silver tuna" of all burglaries, anticipating he and Marv will be able to get their hands on plenty of "top-flight goods."
The biggest tip-off probably should have been the fact that the McCallisters could afford to take their entire extended family on a trip to Paris during the holidays, which as viewers know, is how 8-year-old Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) ends up stranded in the first place.
Up until now, the only insight we had into how those tickets were paid for is a brief exchange at the beginning of the film between matriarch Kate McCallister (Catherine O'Hara) and a police officer, who we later find out is actually Harry. During this conversation, Kate mentions her brother, more colloquially referred to as Uncle Rob, has an apartment in Paris and paid for all 15 family members' airfare.
Before there was definitive data revealing that the McCallisters are, in fact, upper-class, fans took to the Internet with theories about the McCallister's financial background. One fan speculated that Kevin's father, Peter McCallister (John Heard) is involved in an organized crime ring. The Times cutely acknowledged that they "could not rule out this theory."
Another fan on Reddit pointed out that the novelization of Home Alone, penned by Todd Strasser, specifies that Kate McCallister is a fashion designer, which would also provide rationale for why Kevin has access to so many mannequins while staging a party scene in his house.
However, in a recent interview with The Times, Strasser explained that the official novelizations of Home Alone and its sequels were not closely monitored by the original filmmakers, meaning not everything may be canonical to the films. Strasser also said that he was under the impression were "upper middle class" but not "super rich."
“I don’t know how much the McCallisters made, but it sure did a lot for my bank account,” Strasser told The Times.
Eve Cauley, the set decorator on the film, told the New York Times that the home was not furnished with expensive products but was intentionally made to look "stately," "upscale" and "timeless."
“[John Hughes] told me he likes his films to look a bit nicer and cleaner than reality, since his purpose in making movies is to entertain the audience and uplift them,” Cauley said, elaborating on the guidance she received from Hughes, who wrote the film. "To me, with respect, fans, who argue about the parents' income, or house cost, should, instead, simply enjoy the movie."
Katie Reul is a freelance journalist whose entertainment reporting has been featured in IGN and Variety.
