It's 9k square feet and has a basketball court. The front view may be slightly on the smaller side (not as sweeping) for a typical mansion look but the rest of the house is certainly large enough as even the most discernible real estate agents consider 8k sq ft the cutoff for mansion designation.
I think that’s an important point: it does not look like an 9000 square-foot house from the front. Not that it’s small by any means, but it doesn’t look THAT big from the front.
Mansions have a nice facade and are wonderful throughout and at any angle, whereas a typical McMansion is gratuitous and incoherent and also looks like trash from the back.
Yep. And upper middle class is a wide range.
A 5k square foot house is on the very higher end of middle upper middle class in a low cost of living area.
That is part *of* the quality of a high value home. Everything is proportionate as if it were a 1500sqft home. Really drives home how large the windows and doors are
if a standard 1500sqft house has a 7' door, then this house would have a 42' tall door!
or maybe I did it backwards and this house has a large 9' door, and all 1500sqft houses have a standard 18" door.
either way, yeah, the door on this house IS way bigger!
I think mansion has always been ill defined. I get the spirit of OPs question.
Personally, I disagree that square footage or price automatically qualifies something as a mansion.
Since it derives from the word manor, I’ve always thought of mansions as houses that have permanent live-in staff.
The same reason a ranch is a ranch and not a mansion. In spite of a ranch’s size or financial value, It’s the “way of life” on the land that makes a giant home a mansion, not its specs.
It’s also in a super nice neighborhood, where every house and lot for at least a mile in every direction is equally as impressive and expensive, while still being close to the 3rd largest city in the US. Maybe you could get a house like that (not actually as nice, but a cheap copy of equal size) for a million dollars out of the way somewhere, but where it’s located, that home is worth every bit of $5 million dollars, while seeming more classic, and classier, than any McMansion. To me a classic, well built, 9000 square foot home in one of the country’s most desirable, wealthy, suburbs is a mansion.
It’s because of this that the house doesn’t seem that impressive. If you cut that house from its neighborhood and pasted it in any of the surrounding towns, it would be a stand out house. But, because the rest of the houses in that neighborhood are so phenomenal, this one doesn’t stand out. You could drive right past it and not even know it. That said, I couldn’t afford to rent a bathroom in that house.
Yes and no. I’ve been there, seen the house, and been in and partied at similar ones close by. They’re all impressive. It doesn’t stand out against its neighbors, but it stands out compared to almost any other neighborhood you’ve seen, unless you also hang out in Beverly Hills, or Nantucket, the hamptons, etc.
Yeah, I read questions like OP’s and I wonder if this is just humblebragging. Like, of course that’s a mansion, you dipshit, it’s a nicer and bigger home than most first world residents will ever set foot into at any point in their lives.
Does the 9000 ft count the half basketball court that they added since the movie? I mean I'm not here to argue whether or not it's a mansion but the basketball court looks like they went under the house and over in one direction and then further down so that might explain why the front only looks like a 6,000 square foot house
The square footage usually refers to above ground living area. Most of the time of they include basement or it or a guest house, they add an asterisk with an explanation. According to Zillow it’s 9126 sq feet so I’d assume it’s the house itself. Not including the property.
Also looks like it’s contingent pending sale for 5 mil as of couple days ago.
They were given the tickets from their uncle. So their uncle is rich!
I had a rich uncle for a while (80s computer boon) and he was so generous, we liked him before & after the money but he lived a nice life & shared it
I have a great-uncle like this. He was a nuclear engineer. He’s one of the most generous and well balanced people I know. He’s so fun to spend time with, he has so many interesting stories from working around the world. I always love picking his brain about topics.
It’s been a long time since we all got together for a visit or a holiday dinner. Being reminded of that makes me a bit sad.
Important context is that it was a mansion in the 1920s when it was built. Most newer mansions look more glamorous, but even then, this house is still like 9,000 sq. feet which is pretty huge.
Plus, the town its in is a very wealthy old-money suburb of Chicago. It’s mostly older mansions like this but still very expensive due to how desirable the area is
Thank you - this is really the sticking point: location. Chicago has older builds on smaller lots than LA, so I think the architecture is throwing OP off.
I live in DC, so this style of house is more familiar to me than the McMansions on acreage that OP is used to.
Yup. Also if you spend enough time around these kinds of houses you know that a lot of big, sprawling places on acres are often cheaper because the owners bought in exurbs for space.
Sorry to nitpick, but Winnetka is a commuter neighborhood, the NY equivalent would be Great Neck, Manhasset, Greenwich CT, etc.... The Hamptons is an area that people go out to for the summer or long weekends. It's 2+ hours away from the city with traffic.
idk I grew up in a double wide trailer in rural America and I never thought of this house as a mansion. I guess I thought of mansions as cartoonishly lavish whereas this just looked like a really large house. others have pointed out that you probably couldn’t tell the true size of the house from most of the exterior shots (I would not have guessed 9K square footage with a basketball court based on the movie). OP is getting shit on pretty hard because Reddit will never pass up on an opportunity to dunk on a rich person but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for this to not fit someone’s definition of “mansion” since that’s incredibly subjective.
It's not unreasonable at all. I agree with OP as long as we're not taking the actual square footage of the house into account. From the front it looks like a large upper-middle class house. Upper end of the upper-middle class spectrum for sure, but seems reasonable to put it in that category.
I love that you're essentially saying the exact same thing as OP, but their comments are downvoted to oblivion.
There are so many posts talking about diminished spending power for the poor and middle class over the last few decades that are consistently agreed with and upvoted. OP is making exactly that point. Good times, Reddit...
The front of it looks like a 4500 square foot house. At turn of the 20th century, that was definitely a mansion. In 1995, it was just a very well to do upper middle class residence. However, knowing the actual house only appears to be 4500 or so square feet and is actually 9000 square feet...changes a LOT. It's a bonafide mansion in any era, knowing that it is that large...but, I would not have guessed those dimensions from looking at this photo or watching the film.
Here’s the thing: when you live in a trailer you picture rich people in sprawling mansions, but when you are middle class white collar professional or above and go to your boss’s house it’s often like this, especially if it is close to a city. Money talks, wealth whispers.
Since the movie, the basement was dug out and expanded to add a basketball court (yes, under the house). The attic was also finished out.
I’d guess it was closer to 6500-7k sq ft pre renovation. That’s probably what’s causing the most confusion here.
My boss is 41 and lives in a house like this, minus the wings. He bought it for less than I bought my current much smaller townhome in the same city (I'm 31). It's absolutely insane how much of an advantage people who were in home-buying stage of life in 2014 vs 2024 had even with similar income. Sigh, I was born too late.
We bought our first home in 2008, our current home in 2017, and then refinanced in 2021. My wife talks about moving occasionally and I’m like, we basically won the end-stage capitalism lottery three times to make it this far. We are dying in this house.
Location is also a huge factor. There are some under 2000 sqft single family homes in my city that are on the market for millions but not considered mansions.
Yeah in my ex’s hometown there was a 15k sq ft sprawling mansion that is by any definition.. an estate/manor/mansion.. whatever. It sold for $500k because it’s in the middle of the Texas panhandle, an hour away from a 300k city, and five hours away from the nearest metro area (Dallas).
Im not surprised by that. In Hong Kong, the cost of a parking spot can be upwards of 100k. There is a huge masterplan condo tower development being built near me. The condos don't come with parking. It's over 100K to add a parking spot in the underground parking.
Exactly. As a Dutchie I am accustomed to houses being narrow yet tall. When I first saw this film as a child I definitely knew it was a mansion by Dutch standards.
I'm not rich at all. I'm currently living in an affordable housing complex. But as a kid, the only mansions I had ever seen were these big, sprawling estates.
Money talks, wealth whispers. A lot of people who aren’t adjacent to wealth think that more money means big big BIG, when really it’s 8 bedrooms in a very tony suburb.
I think this is just more of an optical illusion than anything else. The house looks quite big, sure and definitely indicative of wealth. I would never have guessed 9,000 square feet, though. I think it’s just the large front door area and that it’s a perfect rectangle, we can’t see the depth or anything.
This is a good test, at least in the US. The number of people you pay regularly on an annual basis to keep it going is a pretty good metric. I’d argue that if the number is >5, you live in a mansion
38 year old here. Grew up squarely middle class. Like my parents combined for maybe 100k. But probably more like 80-90k.
When I saw the movie as a kid, I didn’t immediately view the McCalisters as “rich” (like someone I’d see on “lifestyles of the rich and famous”) I viewed them as upper middle class.
Like - they had a moderately nicer house than ours. They went on vacation to Paris. we went to Orlando every couple years. They dressed nicer.
It’s only now that I look back and think, “yeah they were rich”
I bought a two floor 2400 sq ft home 3 years ago and to everyone that comes to visit they say we live in a mansion lol. It’s just my wife and I and two dogs so yeah it is a big home for our needs, but to me it’s pretty normal.
I’m not sure why everyone is jumping on you. I grew up poor and am now middle class. Even I know this wasn’t considered a mansion, it would have been an upper-middle class house. This kind of house would have people that come in weekly to clean, instead of live-in staff. They would hire a landscaping company instead of having a groundskeeper. The house would be in a neighborhood with good schools, so the kids would go local instead of private. Years ago, a family living here would have been considered very well off and “comfortable”, but not rich. They would have taken a couple nice trips a year, had new cars, etc. They would have been lawyers or doctors. “Mansion” used to mean a house on an estate, for the most part.
Now a house like this is very unattainable for most and is considered a “mansion”. In a way, this is an argument about semantics.
100% semantics, yeah. That said, it's extremely rare for people to have live in help these days whereas it used to be a lot more common. The way wealthy people live has changed over the years. Most people prefer the privacy of not having live in help and with all our modern conveniences there's not much point in hiring a stranger to live under your roof.
What time period exactly are you talking about?
The average size of a home in the US has exploded over the last 50-70 years, even as the average size of a household has gone down since more people are living with less kids.
There has never been a time in American history when owning a 9,000 square foot home in a nice area made you "comfortable, but not rich". Homes are significantly larger today than they were for most of the 20th century and have significantly more amenities and luxuries, even for the middle class, but the average home size today is still around 2500 sq ft.
It's all about the definition, like you said. Some people think mansion means an estate that only 1%ers can afford with marble interiors and ballrooms. Some people think mansion means a large but reasonable home like this one in a neighborhood that's probably filled with similar houses.
I think this is an interesting question. (Sorry that Reddit is doing its thing and jumping all over you, but every interaction with this site is a roll of the crazy dice...)
I grew up middle- to upper-middle class in the 90s and 00s, and as a *kid* I would not have considered this house a mansion either, but that's because *kids are stupid*. Their worldview is limited to what they see and experience in their immediate vicinity, and how that compares to what they see on tv (esp. in our case as pre-internet 90s babies.) Kids, like Sith, deal in absolutes. "I live in a regular house. Richie Rich lives in a mansion. The queen of England lives in a mansion. Kevin McCallister's house is bigger than my regular house, but it's not a mansion." Case closed.
Now as an adult, this house is 100% a mansion, primarily because I now know how to define mansions, and they're not just limited to castles and palaces on sprawling 100-acre estates. Size, location, style, craftsmanship, architectural integrity all matter.
Consider for comparison: Michael Jordan's house in Highland Park, just a few miles from the Home Alone house. A 56,000 sq ft monstrosity with every amenity you can think of and then some. Is it a mansion? In the legal sense of the word, obviously yes. In the more nuanced sense that "mansions" should be well-designed, masterfully crafted, and evoke a sense of bespoke luxury rather than ostentatiousness... Michael Jordan's house is the world's largest McMansion.
I grew up going to white schools, I’m Hispanic, who grew up living in apartment buildings up until 17 when our family finally got a house.
This big mf is a mansion in my eyes, nothing less, anyone who says less, in MY OPINION before I get a hundred down votes, grew up in really nice decent sized homes.
I was born in the 80s and was treated incredibly well by my parents growing up and considered this a mansion (not as extravagant as some but still a mansion). The family takes trips to Paris and the adults are in first class.
Well, the house went for $875k in the late ‘80’s, when the movie was filmed. My impression when watching the movie was that the family was just starting to enjoy being well-off and were moving rapidly into the wealthy category. Which I guess is at the cusp of upper class, or just entering it, i.e. upper middle class.
The house doesn’t look like 9k square feet from the movie, but that’s definitely mansion territory.
I always thought of them as upper middle class, but that designation has sort of evaporated in recent decades as the whole middle class has shrunk. So nowadays they would be considered upper class.
Relative to many homes in the area (the very well-heeled North Shore suburbs of Chicago), this is actually a somewhat modest house.
I too grew up in the 80s and 90s--incidentally, in the Chicago suburbs--and I also consider it just a nice, large house. Unquestionably quite upper-middle-class, but not a mansion.
This was an upper middle class home back in the 90’s and now something only attainable by millionaires. I see regular looking houses now selling for a million plus.
If houses are not affordable to more than a third of the country…… I would say the population peppered in between are anomalies and not enough for a consensus classification.
It was for sale just recently. You can see what the inside is like on Zillow still. Currently under contract.
[https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/671-Lincoln-Ave-Winnetka-IL-60093/3360197_zpid/?utm_campaign=androidappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/671-Lincoln-Ave-Winnetka-IL-60093/3360197_zpid/?utm_campaign=androidappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare)
lol it has an indoor basketball court with 25 foot ceilings, and a massive kitchen with two islands, and a theater…
Yes, it’s a mansion!
Take this as your sign to wake up to the fact that you are a little out of touch. And change, or not… that’s up to you.
It was always a mansion to me. I grew up in the 70s/80s in the middle class. People even called my high school the rich high school. But we didn't have houses like that.
That’s a mansion. I feel like anyone who thinks it doesn’t look like it’s 9,000 sqft have never actually been inside a house that size. It definitely looks its size, especially if you’ve seen the inside, as most of us have.
I always thought it was just a nice big old home in a very wealthy section of Chicago. It was built in 1921, but just more of the kind of *home* people who have money might build, as opposed to a *mansion* people who have money might build to show they have money.
I never thought about it, but I think the 2018 remodel mentioned in a NYPost article might sway opinion.
"A major renovation in 2018 transformed it into a modern marvel, complete with a gourmet kitchen, a second family room, an in-home basketball court and a state-of-the-art movie theater."
It's the in-home basketball court. Before that, I just thought it was a big house similar to the ones around the university I attended.
I think it depends on how you define mansion which seems like OP is thinking a large, sprawling estate. The definition of mansion, though, is "a large, imposing residence" or simply a large house. There's no rules that say upper-middle class people can't own mansions. Being very wealthy doesn't define the actual style of the house.
Winnetka is one of the wealthiest suburbs in America, in an above average wealthy region on the north suburbs of Chicago. Those houses were beyond middle class.
The Mccallisters could own a large home, afford to have multiple kids, and fly over a dozen people to Europe for Christmas, including flying at least two of them first class. Even for the time, this family was wealthy. Not upper middle class.
I'd say the house itself is hard upper middle class. I briefly lived in a neighborhood like this (lived with an ex, but we were together at the time, it was his parents house), and no one in the neighborhood was "rich". To me, growing up impoverished, they were rich. But in reality everyone was upper middle class.
It is now that it has been added on to it.
edit: well close.
['Home Alone' House Is Listed for $5.25M After a Serious Renovation—but Is It an Improvement? (realtor.com)](https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/home-alone-house-lists-after-serious-renovation/)
A mansion has to be at least 10,000 sq foot for it to be considered one.
It’s always been a mansion. The neighborhood it’s in is pretty much all mansions too, you won’t find many houses for under 1.5 million in that neighborhood.
I, too, “grew up in the 80s and 90s”, and this house is big as fuck to me. I lived in a 14x70 trailer until I was like 12 and then moved into a small house. Not sure the square footage (though I should find that out since I own it now). The biggest house I’ve ever considered buying was 4600 sq ft and it was an absolute stunner, but way too much house for me. I can’t even fathom doubling that square footage.
The Home Alone house maybe isn’t as ornate/gaudy as what some people think of as a “mansion”, but anything in that size range would certainly qualify in my opinion.
Yes, and if you thought it was middle class i have news for you. You were probably rich or you had rich friends who refered to themselves as middle class
I get how it qualifies as a mansion, but I do think part of it is how houses were represented in media the 90s. This was considered somewhat “normal” if nice in a movie. I definitely think the McAllisters were supposed to be well off, but maybe upper middle class. There’s a big trend in family movies of this era to represent upper middle class or even straight up rich as ‘average’. On the other hand, my great aunt lived in a house that reminded me of this one for years starting in the early 90s- she and her husband definitely were wealthier than my grandparents who are decidedly lower middle class, but it never felt like a huge class divide and we spent a lot of time at each other’s houses for family gatherings and went on vacations together. Now, the disparity is way way larger especially for my father and his siblings as compared to my great aunt’s son.
Some great fanfics in the comments 😂 I grew up poor as hell and to me, a mansion was a sprawling estate. I always saw this as a really nice big house. I'm not sure why people are assuming that OP is wealthy
According to reddit, there's 2 categories of houses:
A- run down mobile homes/shacks
2- mansions
C- tiny apartments
Oh, and 1,000 sq ft houses in the 80s.
4 categories. There's 4 categories of houses according to Reddit.
It's 9k square feet and has a basketball court. The front view may be slightly on the smaller side (not as sweeping) for a typical mansion look but the rest of the house is certainly large enough as even the most discernible real estate agents consider 8k sq ft the cutoff for mansion designation.
Plus, it's in a very expensive and nice area.
Location, location, location.
It was the nicest neighborhood in America at the time I’m pretty sure, and still one of the top 10ish.
Probably because of the home break-in problem
And I believe walking distance to Lake Michigan.
I think that’s an important point: it does not look like an 9000 square-foot house from the front. Not that it’s small by any means, but it doesn’t look THAT big from the front.
This house is 9x bigger than the house I grew up in. I couldn’t imagine having that much space
So much room for activities
And booby traps
this is the room where we sneeze. no-no darling, you MUSTN'T think about raccoons in this room, that's on the 5th floor, last door on the left.
I hope that room has an en-suite because I’d be stuck there almost 24/7. I *really* like raccoons.
Do you wanna do karate in the garage?
Yep!
Did we just become best friends?!?!?
Yep!
What’s your favorite dinosaur ….?
This house is a prison!
On planet bullshit!
in the galaxy of this sucks camel dick!
The house is more than 9x bigger than my current home….
Same if I’m honest. My house is also a condo downtown so they have that on me too
Why wouldn't you be honest?
Because I have delusions of grandeur?
This house is 15x as large as the first home my son lived in(small 2 bedroom apartment of 500 square feet).
It's the width of like 4 standard houses from the front. It looks huge
Yeah if you shaved off both of those side wings maybe I could see OP's argument
Mansions have a nice facade and are wonderful throughout and at any angle, whereas a typical McMansion is gratuitous and incoherent and also looks like trash from the back.
I’m not referring to quality at all, just the fact that given no other information, you would not estimate 9000 ft.² from that photo.
Definitely, to me it looks in the 4-5k range from the front. I definitely wouldn’t have thought it was double that
I would guess 4-5k sf if it didn't have the wings on both sides.
It was originally 5,400 sq. ft and the current owners that purchased in 2012 put an addition on in the back to get it to 9,000
This is the most important comment here. In the movie, it's 5k feet
Yep. And upper middle class is a wide range. A 5k square foot house is on the very higher end of middle upper middle class in a low cost of living area.
That is part *of* the quality of a high value home. Everything is proportionate as if it were a 1500sqft home. Really drives home how large the windows and doors are
if a standard 1500sqft house has a 7' door, then this house would have a 42' tall door! or maybe I did it backwards and this house has a large 9' door, and all 1500sqft houses have a standard 18" door. either way, yeah, the door on this house IS way bigger!
I think mansion has always been ill defined. I get the spirit of OPs question. Personally, I disagree that square footage or price automatically qualifies something as a mansion. Since it derives from the word manor, I’ve always thought of mansions as houses that have permanent live-in staff. The same reason a ranch is a ranch and not a mansion. In spite of a ranch’s size or financial value, It’s the “way of life” on the land that makes a giant home a mansion, not its specs.
It’s also in a super nice neighborhood, where every house and lot for at least a mile in every direction is equally as impressive and expensive, while still being close to the 3rd largest city in the US. Maybe you could get a house like that (not actually as nice, but a cheap copy of equal size) for a million dollars out of the way somewhere, but where it’s located, that home is worth every bit of $5 million dollars, while seeming more classic, and classier, than any McMansion. To me a classic, well built, 9000 square foot home in one of the country’s most desirable, wealthy, suburbs is a mansion.
It’s because of this that the house doesn’t seem that impressive. If you cut that house from its neighborhood and pasted it in any of the surrounding towns, it would be a stand out house. But, because the rest of the houses in that neighborhood are so phenomenal, this one doesn’t stand out. You could drive right past it and not even know it. That said, I couldn’t afford to rent a bathroom in that house.
Yes and no. I’ve been there, seen the house, and been in and partied at similar ones close by. They’re all impressive. It doesn’t stand out against its neighbors, but it stands out compared to almost any other neighborhood you’ve seen, unless you also hang out in Beverly Hills, or Nantucket, the hamptons, etc.
Yeah. My agent said the same thing anything above 8k is a mansion by numbers.
So in other words it’s long?
Is it before or after the reconstruction to the entire house after the movie?
Yeah, I read questions like OP’s and I wonder if this is just humblebragging. Like, of course that’s a mansion, you dipshit, it’s a nicer and bigger home than most first world residents will ever set foot into at any point in their lives.
Does the 9000 ft count the half basketball court that they added since the movie? I mean I'm not here to argue whether or not it's a mansion but the basketball court looks like they went under the house and over in one direction and then further down so that might explain why the front only looks like a 6,000 square foot house
The square footage usually refers to above ground living area. Most of the time of they include basement or it or a guest house, they add an asterisk with an explanation. According to Zillow it’s 9126 sq feet so I’d assume it’s the house itself. Not including the property. Also looks like it’s contingent pending sale for 5 mil as of couple days ago.
Kevin's family of like 9 all went to Paris for Christmas. That's rich!
They were given the tickets from their uncle. So their uncle is rich! I had a rich uncle for a while (80s computer boon) and he was so generous, we liked him before & after the money but he lived a nice life & shared it
I have a great-uncle like this. He was a nuclear engineer. He’s one of the most generous and well balanced people I know. He’s so fun to spend time with, he has so many interesting stories from working around the world. I always love picking his brain about topics. It’s been a long time since we all got together for a visit or a holiday dinner. Being reminded of that makes me a bit sad.
You can always reach out for a call. I’m sure he’d love it.
same uncle had a brownstone in manhatton.
Was he sugar-uncling the house to them, as well?
And the entire extended family all stayed in that house the night before they flew out. Ain’t no way that many ppl could have slept in our house
Fifteen including Kevin. Five boys, six girls, four parents. (Two drivers.) And a partridge in a pear tree.
Isn’t it true that French babes don’t shave their pits?
Some don't.
But they’ve got nude beaches…
Not in the winter.
Not in the 80’s and 90’s that was just middle to upper middle class
I’ve done a lot of traveling and never seen a family of 9 traveling together, even in Paris
Important context is that it was a mansion in the 1920s when it was built. Most newer mansions look more glamorous, but even then, this house is still like 9,000 sq. feet which is pretty huge. Plus, the town its in is a very wealthy old-money suburb of Chicago. It’s mostly older mansions like this but still very expensive due to how desirable the area is
Thank you - this is really the sticking point: location. Chicago has older builds on smaller lots than LA, so I think the architecture is throwing OP off. I live in DC, so this style of house is more familiar to me than the McMansions on acreage that OP is used to.
Yup. Also if you spend enough time around these kinds of houses you know that a lot of big, sprawling places on acres are often cheaper because the owners bought in exurbs for space.
This is in the North Shore of Chicago. This is pretty much the Hamptons equivalent of NYC. It is for rich people.
Plus, compared to the rest of the block, this house is the silver tuna. Very G.
It might be nicer than the house next to it, but there’s lot of houses just like this in the area. It actually doesn’t stand out.
Maybe, but this one is loaded. Lots of top-flight goods. Antiques, collectibles… possible cash hoard…
This! Very wealthy area. Nothing remotely "middle" about it. The McAllister's were a rich family.
I felt like the movie was pretty explicit about it too, considering the Wet Bandits were targeting the area for all its primo loot
Sorry to nitpick, but Winnetka is a commuter neighborhood, the NY equivalent would be Great Neck, Manhasset, Greenwich CT, etc.... The Hamptons is an area that people go out to for the summer or long weekends. It's 2+ hours away from the city with traffic.
Yup, you’re spoiled
OP grew up in the palace of Versailles lol.
They said they weren’t rich, I bet they only grew up in the Schönbrunn Palace. They wish they lived at Versailles.
Eww they’re a poor lol
idk I grew up in a double wide trailer in rural America and I never thought of this house as a mansion. I guess I thought of mansions as cartoonishly lavish whereas this just looked like a really large house. others have pointed out that you probably couldn’t tell the true size of the house from most of the exterior shots (I would not have guessed 9K square footage with a basketball court based on the movie). OP is getting shit on pretty hard because Reddit will never pass up on an opportunity to dunk on a rich person but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for this to not fit someone’s definition of “mansion” since that’s incredibly subjective.
It's not unreasonable at all. I agree with OP as long as we're not taking the actual square footage of the house into account. From the front it looks like a large upper-middle class house. Upper end of the upper-middle class spectrum for sure, but seems reasonable to put it in that category. I love that you're essentially saying the exact same thing as OP, but their comments are downvoted to oblivion. There are so many posts talking about diminished spending power for the poor and middle class over the last few decades that are consistently agreed with and upvoted. OP is making exactly that point. Good times, Reddit...
The Witches of Eastwick house was more of a Mansion, this is a big house to me like Ferris Bueller's was
The front of it looks like a 4500 square foot house. At turn of the 20th century, that was definitely a mansion. In 1995, it was just a very well to do upper middle class residence. However, knowing the actual house only appears to be 4500 or so square feet and is actually 9000 square feet...changes a LOT. It's a bonafide mansion in any era, knowing that it is that large...but, I would not have guessed those dimensions from looking at this photo or watching the film.
Here’s the thing: when you live in a trailer you picture rich people in sprawling mansions, but when you are middle class white collar professional or above and go to your boss’s house it’s often like this, especially if it is close to a city. Money talks, wealth whispers.
Since the movie, the basement was dug out and expanded to add a basketball court (yes, under the house). The attic was also finished out. I’d guess it was closer to 6500-7k sq ft pre renovation. That’s probably what’s causing the most confusion here.
I don’t personally know a single person who lives in a house this nice. Midwest, 41.
My boss is 41 and lives in a house like this, minus the wings. He bought it for less than I bought my current much smaller townhome in the same city (I'm 31). It's absolutely insane how much of an advantage people who were in home-buying stage of life in 2014 vs 2024 had even with similar income. Sigh, I was born too late.
We bought our first home in 2008, our current home in 2017, and then refinanced in 2021. My wife talks about moving occasionally and I’m like, we basically won the end-stage capitalism lottery three times to make it this far. We are dying in this house.
Its not a reddit post without at least one doomer or “end stage capitalist” poster puts a stupid comment.
People born 20 years from now will say the same thing about right now.
“Now is always the right time to buy” -my realtor
I dunno, I bought in 2022 and that was not the right time lol
I mean the Zillow estimate is 5.25 million and it may or may not be booby trapped by a precocious 10 year old so.
Location is also a huge factor. There are some under 2000 sqft single family homes in my city that are on the market for millions but not considered mansions.
Yeah in my ex’s hometown there was a 15k sq ft sprawling mansion that is by any definition.. an estate/manor/mansion.. whatever. It sold for $500k because it’s in the middle of the Texas panhandle, an hour away from a 300k city, and five hours away from the nearest metro area (Dallas).
I live in a HCOL city. A 850 sqft bachelor style condo (no bedroom) starts at 1 million dollars (CAD). Average rent for a 1 bedroom is $2850/mo.
There’s a parking spot for sale in my city for $150,000. A parking spot.
Im not surprised by that. In Hong Kong, the cost of a parking spot can be upwards of 100k. There is a huge masterplan condo tower development being built near me. The condos don't come with parking. It's over 100K to add a parking spot in the underground parking.
As a Brit I always thought it was huge, and definitely mansionesque
Exactly. As a Dutchie I am accustomed to houses being narrow yet tall. When I first saw this film as a child I definitely knew it was a mansion by Dutch standards.
As an American, this is a mansion. I have no idea what the other people in this thread are on about.
Someone is unaware of how rich they are…
I dunno, it seemed like they had some awareness given that they are asking the question.
I'm not rich at all. I'm currently living in an affordable housing complex. But as a kid, the only mansions I had ever seen were these big, sprawling estates.
Looking at it, I wouldn’t consider it a mansion. After finding out it’s 9,000 sq ft.. I’d certainly consider it a mansion
Money talks, wealth whispers. A lot of people who aren’t adjacent to wealth think that more money means big big BIG, when really it’s 8 bedrooms in a very tony suburb.
So, those sprawling estates still exist. If this house has “now” become a mansion, what are those big sprawling estates now?
those are mega mansions.
I think this is just more of an optical illusion than anything else. The house looks quite big, sure and definitely indicative of wealth. I would never have guessed 9,000 square feet, though. I think it’s just the large front door area and that it’s a perfect rectangle, we can’t see the depth or anything.
You really just don’t want to admit you grew up wealthy for some reason
It’s a mansion. Look at the size of it and now imagine trying to keep it clean without hiring help.
Bedroom 1 would be dusty again by the time you get to bedroom 7.
That's why they had so many kids to save money on maids.
This is a good test, at least in the US. The number of people you pay regularly on an annual basis to keep it going is a pretty good metric. I’d argue that if the number is >5, you live in a mansion
38 year old here. Grew up squarely middle class. Like my parents combined for maybe 100k. But probably more like 80-90k. When I saw the movie as a kid, I didn’t immediately view the McCalisters as “rich” (like someone I’d see on “lifestyles of the rich and famous”) I viewed them as upper middle class. Like - they had a moderately nicer house than ours. They went on vacation to Paris. we went to Orlando every couple years. They dressed nicer. It’s only now that I look back and think, “yeah they were rich”
In Europe, where, to my knowledge, houses are smaller on average, you'd definitely need to be quite well-off to live in something like that.
If it's bigger than any house you'll ever live in, that makes it a mansion in my book.
I bought a two floor 2400 sq ft home 3 years ago and to everyone that comes to visit they say we live in a mansion lol. It’s just my wife and I and two dogs so yeah it is a big home for our needs, but to me it’s pretty normal.
Its 9k sq.ft, thats mansion territory.
It was a mansion then, too.
Yeah. I distinctly remember thinking as a kid how cool it would be to be rich like the McCallisters.
Looking at it how can you not call it a mansion. Jealous of OP’s easy life.
I’m not sure why everyone is jumping on you. I grew up poor and am now middle class. Even I know this wasn’t considered a mansion, it would have been an upper-middle class house. This kind of house would have people that come in weekly to clean, instead of live-in staff. They would hire a landscaping company instead of having a groundskeeper. The house would be in a neighborhood with good schools, so the kids would go local instead of private. Years ago, a family living here would have been considered very well off and “comfortable”, but not rich. They would have taken a couple nice trips a year, had new cars, etc. They would have been lawyers or doctors. “Mansion” used to mean a house on an estate, for the most part. Now a house like this is very unattainable for most and is considered a “mansion”. In a way, this is an argument about semantics.
100% semantics, yeah. That said, it's extremely rare for people to have live in help these days whereas it used to be a lot more common. The way wealthy people live has changed over the years. Most people prefer the privacy of not having live in help and with all our modern conveniences there's not much point in hiring a stranger to live under your roof.
What time period exactly are you talking about? The average size of a home in the US has exploded over the last 50-70 years, even as the average size of a household has gone down since more people are living with less kids. There has never been a time in American history when owning a 9,000 square foot home in a nice area made you "comfortable, but not rich". Homes are significantly larger today than they were for most of the 20th century and have significantly more amenities and luxuries, even for the middle class, but the average home size today is still around 2500 sq ft.
It's all about the definition, like you said. Some people think mansion means an estate that only 1%ers can afford with marble interiors and ballrooms. Some people think mansion means a large but reasonable home like this one in a neighborhood that's probably filled with similar houses.
I think this is an interesting question. (Sorry that Reddit is doing its thing and jumping all over you, but every interaction with this site is a roll of the crazy dice...) I grew up middle- to upper-middle class in the 90s and 00s, and as a *kid* I would not have considered this house a mansion either, but that's because *kids are stupid*. Their worldview is limited to what they see and experience in their immediate vicinity, and how that compares to what they see on tv (esp. in our case as pre-internet 90s babies.) Kids, like Sith, deal in absolutes. "I live in a regular house. Richie Rich lives in a mansion. The queen of England lives in a mansion. Kevin McCallister's house is bigger than my regular house, but it's not a mansion." Case closed. Now as an adult, this house is 100% a mansion, primarily because I now know how to define mansions, and they're not just limited to castles and palaces on sprawling 100-acre estates. Size, location, style, craftsmanship, architectural integrity all matter. Consider for comparison: Michael Jordan's house in Highland Park, just a few miles from the Home Alone house. A 56,000 sq ft monstrosity with every amenity you can think of and then some. Is it a mansion? In the legal sense of the word, obviously yes. In the more nuanced sense that "mansions" should be well-designed, masterfully crafted, and evoke a sense of bespoke luxury rather than ostentatiousness... Michael Jordan's house is the world's largest McMansion.
I grew up going to white schools, I’m Hispanic, who grew up living in apartment buildings up until 17 when our family finally got a house. This big mf is a mansion in my eyes, nothing less, anyone who says less, in MY OPINION before I get a hundred down votes, grew up in really nice decent sized homes.
I was born in the 80s and was treated incredibly well by my parents growing up and considered this a mansion (not as extravagant as some but still a mansion). The family takes trips to Paris and the adults are in first class.
Well, the house went for $875k in the late ‘80’s, when the movie was filmed. My impression when watching the movie was that the family was just starting to enjoy being well-off and were moving rapidly into the wealthy category. Which I guess is at the cusp of upper class, or just entering it, i.e. upper middle class. The house doesn’t look like 9k square feet from the movie, but that’s definitely mansion territory. I always thought of them as upper middle class, but that designation has sort of evaporated in recent decades as the whole middle class has shrunk. So nowadays they would be considered upper class.
Relative to many homes in the area (the very well-heeled North Shore suburbs of Chicago), this is actually a somewhat modest house. I too grew up in the 80s and 90s--incidentally, in the Chicago suburbs--and I also consider it just a nice, large house. Unquestionably quite upper-middle-class, but not a mansion.
Umm. Mansion. Look at how 99% of the world lives. Middle class American = mega rich
You are absolutely fucking tripping. That house would sell for 4 million today at least
This was an upper middle class home back in the 90’s and now something only attainable by millionaires. I see regular looking houses now selling for a million plus.
A 9K sq. ft. house was never upper middle class.
Is there even an upper middle class any more, sigh
If houses are not affordable to more than a third of the country…… I would say the population peppered in between are anomalies and not enough for a consensus classification.
It was for sale just recently. You can see what the inside is like on Zillow still. Currently under contract. [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/671-Lincoln-Ave-Winnetka-IL-60093/3360197_zpid/?utm_campaign=androidappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/671-Lincoln-Ave-Winnetka-IL-60093/3360197_zpid/?utm_campaign=androidappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare)
5.25 million and OP not quite sure if it’s just basically a nice normal house.
It was absolutely considered a mansion to me as a kid. Our house pretty was small tho
lol it has an indoor basketball court with 25 foot ceilings, and a massive kitchen with two islands, and a theater… Yes, it’s a mansion! Take this as your sign to wake up to the fact that you are a little out of touch. And change, or not… that’s up to you.
It was a mansion then. It is a mansion now.
Uh, definitely spoiled. That’s a mansion.
I always thought of it as a mansion, it's huge.
You are spoiled.
It was always a mansion to me. I grew up in the 70s/80s in the middle class. People even called my high school the rich high school. But we didn't have houses like that.
That’s a mansion. I feel like anyone who thinks it doesn’t look like it’s 9,000 sqft have never actually been inside a house that size. It definitely looks its size, especially if you’ve seen the inside, as most of us have.
That’s literally a mansion. Maybe you’ve been desensitized by all the super mega mansions A list celebrities have now
Probably.
I always thought it was just a nice big old home in a very wealthy section of Chicago. It was built in 1921, but just more of the kind of *home* people who have money might build, as opposed to a *mansion* people who have money might build to show they have money.
That's a colonial
I never thought about it, but I think the 2018 remodel mentioned in a NYPost article might sway opinion. "A major renovation in 2018 transformed it into a modern marvel, complete with a gourmet kitchen, a second family room, an in-home basketball court and a state-of-the-art movie theater." It's the in-home basketball court. Before that, I just thought it was a big house similar to the ones around the university I attended.
I think it depends on how you define mansion which seems like OP is thinking a large, sprawling estate. The definition of mansion, though, is "a large, imposing residence" or simply a large house. There's no rules that say upper-middle class people can't own mansions. Being very wealthy doesn't define the actual style of the house.
Thought it was a mansion as a kid, think it’s a mansion now.
Mansion status. But not estate status.
It's a rich people's house. I don't know if that's a mansion, but it's way above middle class and always was.
This is a mansion in my eyes !
Ummm yeah. You're definitely spoiled.
You were infact not middle class if this was an avg house to you
Me too, I never thought of it as a mansion. If it’s a mansion, what about Chevy Chase’s house in Christmas vacation, or Molly Ringwald in 16 candles?
Winnetka is one of the wealthiest suburbs in America, in an above average wealthy region on the north suburbs of Chicago. Those houses were beyond middle class.
The Mccallisters could own a large home, afford to have multiple kids, and fly over a dozen people to Europe for Christmas, including flying at least two of them first class. Even for the time, this family was wealthy. Not upper middle class.
Yeah, you are spoiled and totally out of touch with reality.
Was just listed for 5.25 million, and sold in less than a week. That wasn’t my middle class!!
You are spoiled as hell lol. That house is big as fuck
It was a mansion back then and still is now.
I believe 5000 sq ft us the threshold for a mansion. It’s not an opinion- there’s a definition
We’re a poorer country than we were in 1991 :)))) it’s great! Eventually shotgun shacks will be considered living in the lap of luxury
I have been inside and yes it’s definitely a mansion
I'd say the house itself is hard upper middle class. I briefly lived in a neighborhood like this (lived with an ex, but we were together at the time, it was his parents house), and no one in the neighborhood was "rich". To me, growing up impoverished, they were rich. But in reality everyone was upper middle class.
Was Winnetka ever a upper-middle class area? That area is one of the wealthiest in the country.
I feel up in the 90s and it kinda looks like a mansion to me.
You are spoiled. That is exactly a mansion. Look at historical mansions for perspective.
What? Its definitely a mansion
You're spoiled.
Very curious what your house growing up looked like 🤔😂
Congrats on being spoiled! Hope to get there someday, myself.
It is now that it has been added on to it. edit: well close. ['Home Alone' House Is Listed for $5.25M After a Serious Renovation—but Is It an Improvement? (realtor.com)](https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/home-alone-house-lists-after-serious-renovation/) A mansion has to be at least 10,000 sq foot for it to be considered one.
It’s always been a mansion. The neighborhood it’s in is pretty much all mansions too, you won’t find many houses for under 1.5 million in that neighborhood.
You can argue the specific definition of a mansion but it’s 100% a rich people house
OP wtf kind of life have you lived where a house this big with this number of rooms and recreation built in is seen as anything other than a mansion.
I, too, “grew up in the 80s and 90s”, and this house is big as fuck to me. I lived in a 14x70 trailer until I was like 12 and then moved into a small house. Not sure the square footage (though I should find that out since I own it now). The biggest house I’ve ever considered buying was 4600 sq ft and it was an absolute stunner, but way too much house for me. I can’t even fathom doubling that square footage. The Home Alone house maybe isn’t as ornate/gaudy as what some people think of as a “mansion”, but anything in that size range would certainly qualify in my opinion.
maybe i just grew up poor but that was always a mansion to me
That would pass as an apartment complex where I'm from.
It was a mansion then and it’s still a mansion now.
spoiled
I don't know how you couldn't call it that. [Look for yourself](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/671-Lincoln-Ave-Winnetka-IL-60093/3360197_zpid/)
It's always been considered a mansion. That shit was ridiculous Hollywood movie magic at its finest
Upper middle class? Is that a joke?
I’m Gen X. That house is damn near 10000 sq ft and has six bathrooms. It’s a mansion.
Are you delusional OP?
It is. If you don't think it is you are beyond out of touch
Yes.
Yes, and if you thought it was middle class i have news for you. You were probably rich or you had rich friends who refered to themselves as middle class
Ooof, you’re privilege is showing 🤣
Wow. So out of touch
Tell me you’re a privileged spoiled brat without telling me
I get how it qualifies as a mansion, but I do think part of it is how houses were represented in media the 90s. This was considered somewhat “normal” if nice in a movie. I definitely think the McAllisters were supposed to be well off, but maybe upper middle class. There’s a big trend in family movies of this era to represent upper middle class or even straight up rich as ‘average’. On the other hand, my great aunt lived in a house that reminded me of this one for years starting in the early 90s- she and her husband definitely were wealthier than my grandparents who are decidedly lower middle class, but it never felt like a huge class divide and we spent a lot of time at each other’s houses for family gatherings and went on vacations together. Now, the disparity is way way larger especially for my father and his siblings as compared to my great aunt’s son.
You were spoiled.
Spoiled
Ya you're spoiled. Unless you're a pedantic architectural historian, thassa damn mansion
Some great fanfics in the comments 😂 I grew up poor as hell and to me, a mansion was a sprawling estate. I always saw this as a really nice big house. I'm not sure why people are assuming that OP is wealthy
According to reddit, there's 2 categories of houses: A- run down mobile homes/shacks 2- mansions C- tiny apartments Oh, and 1,000 sq ft houses in the 80s. 4 categories. There's 4 categories of houses according to Reddit.
Have you all seen this? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/20/movies/home-alone-mccallisters-wealth.html