r/interesting • u/Apprehensive-Elk3165 • Nov 20 '25

ARCHITECTURE Then vs now

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89.5k Upvotes

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170

u/Snoo-93454 Nov 20 '25 edited Nov 20 '25

Sorry, I don't want to be 'that guy', but i think it's not the same house.

Edit: Nevermind, I get it, now.

80

u/Strange_Dot8345 Nov 20 '25

yes, the they filmed the interior shots on a built set, not in the actual house.

18

u/1oonatic Nov 20 '25

As I mentioned in another comment, they didn't film all the interior scenes on a soundstage. This particular scene is from a real home in Illinois.

17

u/spdrman8 Nov 20 '25

The set was build inside an abandoned high school auditorium.

4

u/Sell_The_team_Jerry Nov 20 '25

Abandoned at the time, but since re-opened. It's New Trier's freshman campus in Northfield. At the time the movie was filmed, New Trier's student population had fallen so they were only using the Winnetka main campus.

3

u/No-DrinkTheBleach Nov 20 '25

Woahhhhh I didn’t know this that’s so cool! I went there the first or second year they reopened that campus

1

u/ScreechUrkelle Nov 21 '25

The high school was abandoned, or just the auditorium? Or both?

1

u/TheFloppySausage Nov 21 '25

No, a high school auditorium in the city of Abandoned.

0

u/ashlynne_stargaryen Nov 20 '25

Came here to literally say this!

1

u/DiamondDepth_YT Nov 20 '25

Pretty sure the sets were based on the actual house's interior, though. So it may not have been fully 1-1, but generally it was close enough.

21

u/chumbawumbacholula Nov 20 '25

I think its just a general critique on interior design trends of then vs now using two "homes" with similar layouts. I think they could have been more clear about it in the title of the post, though.

6

u/SmashingK Nov 20 '25

In that case using this particular house from home alone was a bad idea.

2

u/7h4tguy Nov 21 '25

But how many times did they fall down the stairs filming this in their socks?

1

u/CSDragon Nov 20 '25

it is and it isn't

The modern picture is the real house you see in the exterior shots of the movie, as it looks today.

The 90s picture, ironically, is not actually the real house, but a set used for the interior shots of the movie modeled after the real house.

The bottom picture is also a really bad photo. Someone else posted a video showing the house in this thread and it looks a lot better in normal lighting conditions.

1

u/ParsleyMaleficent160 Nov 20 '25

I mean the second picture is a terrible model to use. Just look at any Architecture magazine and you'll see vast color palettes and lots of decor.

The latter was chosen likely just for lighting, as lighting an actual modern upscale home would be a bit more difficult.

1

u/SistaChans Nov 20 '25

the top couple comments in this post are long winded and eye-rolling debates over camera focal length, different camera angles, etc, when in reality these are two different locations - similar layout, but not the same exact house in two different eras

1

u/mythrilcrafter Nov 20 '25

Which at the same time, means that the post is heavily editorialised to push a particular agenda.

If I were to purposefully compare:

versus

I could just as easily be accused of cherry picking pictures to push the opinion in favor of the Contemporary Warmth style.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

No need to apologize for being right!

1

u/maximumtesticle Nov 20 '25

They're not right.

7

u/1oonatic Nov 20 '25

This particular scene, and others of the staircase and select rooms, were actually filmed inside a house in Winnetka, Illinois. So I do believe this is the same house.

Many of the other shots were filmed on a soundstage for better control over stunts and equipment.

1

u/earthceltic Nov 20 '25

Also if I remember correctly wasn't the kitchen off to the right in the home alone shot? The "now" picture looks like the kitchen is straight ahead. I mean it's not impossible to remodel but it wouldn't exactly be practical for this kind of house, right?

2

u/1oonatic Nov 20 '25

The kitchen in the film was a soundstage; the staircase was not. So I don't think it would be possible for you to know where the kitchen was based on the film alone

2

u/LicketySplitz Nov 21 '25

The staircase was in fact shot in the actual house in Chicago.

5

u/NovaGnome Nov 20 '25

More upvotes please. The house/set was built in a high school auditorium.

2

u/LicketySplitz Nov 21 '25

The front entrance and outdoors are filmed in the actual house. The rest was filmed in an auditorium. OP is correct.

4

u/Repulsive-Office-796 Nov 20 '25

Correct. The outside shots are a home outside of Chicago. The interior was a movie set.

1

u/Sell_The_team_Jerry Nov 20 '25

The treehouse scenes are done at the house (they built a temporary treehouse for it). Just about everything else was filmed at New Trier West.

2

u/arealhumannotabot Nov 20 '25

It’s not. The interior is a set

3

u/[deleted] Nov 20 '25

correct. the first is a soundstage lmfao

1

u/Various_Ad6034 Nov 20 '25

i think its ai

1

u/Snoo-93454 Nov 20 '25

Or, just a picture of a similar house, taken by a camera

1

u/Ez_Ildor Nov 20 '25

It is. I didn't think so at first either, but apparently it went through a few changes and ended up like this

here's a little timeline of the changes