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  • Trinity United Methodist Church, 1024 Lake Ave., Wilmette, was used...

    Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press

    Trinity United Methodist Church, 1024 Lake Ave., Wilmette, was used as a location in "Home Alone."

  • The house featured in "Home Alone," seen here in 2019,...

    Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press

    The house featured in "Home Alone," seen here in 2019, is located on Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka.

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Never mind that the irrepressible Kevin McCallister, aka Macaulay Culkin of “Home Alone” fame, is now nearing 40, and those bungling bandits Harry and Marv would be bona fide senior citizens.

For Winnetka residents living near the “Home Alone” house on Lincoln Avenue, the holiday classic remains timeless, with a steady stream of sightseers still stopping by their North Shore neighborhood nearly three decades after the release of the 1990 John Hughes holiday classic.

“That house brings us a lot of joy, and some inconveniences, but we all survive it,” said Linda Martin, a longtime Lincoln Avenue resident who lives near the stately red brick Colonial selected by the late Hughes and director Chris Columbus as the fictional McAllister family home.

Martin recalls a handful of hitches that accompanied the arrival of the “Home Alone” cast and crew in her neighborhood during early 1990.

Her children’s school bus was sidelined by blocked streets, the movie crew’s high-voltage equipment and props prompted power outages, and the Martin family’s black Labrador developed an allergic reaction to the fake snow blowing around the neighborhood.

But for Martin and many of her neighbors, witnessing the joy the “Home Alone” house and other filming locations in the village have brought to countless visitors during the past three decades has outweighed the occasional inconvenience of having their suburban street transformed into an iconic Hollywood landmark.

Martin holds fond memories of the time Macaulay Culkin visited with her children’s pet rabbits, Frosty and Moose, and recalls Daniel Stern, the actor who played the bandit Marv, as “genial, kind and considerate,” who despite a fully-stocked canteen, bought hot cocoa from the neighborhood kids.

Nonetheless, Martin said she never imagined that nearly three decades after the film’s debut that her neighborhood would still be a popular attraction for visitors from across the world.

“When the marketing people from the studio visited our neighborhood before they started filming, they said it would take them about eight days, but it ended up taking them about 30 days,” Martin said.

“The ‘Home Alone’ experience in our neighborhood really never ended, and it continues to this day,” she added.

Longtime resident Terry Dason, executive director of the Winnetka-Northfield Chamber of Commerce, remembers stepping onto the fake snow outside the Community House with her 2-year-old and 8-month-old in tow.

“At first, I thought, ‘what are they doing?’ and then I realized, ‘oh, my! They are filming a movie here in Winnetka!'” said Dason, who still enjoys watching “Home Alone” every holiday season with her family, which now includes grandchildren.

“My kids still watch ‘Home Alone’ with awe and wonder, and they’re 32 and 30 now,” Dason said. “Anytime we have visitors, they want to go over to see the ‘Home Alone’ house. It’s probably difficult for the family who lives there, but since they put a fence up a few years ago, at least people aren’t walking up to their windows anymore and looking in.”

Dason said the Lincoln Avenue property, which has had several different owners in the three decades following the release of the film, was recently renovated and remains “beautiful, well-maintained, and still has the same feel.”

Longtime resident Ann Smith said despite the occasional over-eager sightseers who park illegally before snapping selfies and group photos, most folks in the neighborhood are proud to live on the so-called “Home Alone” block.

“Most people who live on the street love it, and think it’s a lot of fun,” Smith said. “It was a big deal having the movie filmed here, and it’s still a big deal. Any time I’m walking by that house, I see someone out in front, taking pictures.”

Actor Kate Johnson appeared in the film as the police dispatcher Rose, who takes a call from frantic matriarch Kate McCallister, played by Catherine O’Hara. She said the scene — which features the line, “Hyper on two” — was filmed in a classroom at New Trier’s west campus.

“Larry (Hankin), the actor who played police officer Larry Balzak, was eating a doughnut, and a piece got stuck on the phone, and that is the take that Chris (Columbus) kept,” said Johnson, an Evanston resident.

“We had a script, and we did the script, but then we kept going, because Chris allowed us to,” Johnson said. “You can’t recreate that kind of take … you just can’t make that stuff up.”

Unbeknownst to the casting director, Johnson said she was more than four months pregnant with her son, Zeke Spector, who is now 29, when she shot the police station scene.

“I had on a polyester skirt, and it fit just like a pair of Spanx,” she said.

She and her family attended the recent performance of “Home Alone in Concert,” featuring the movie on the big screen, as accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing composer John Williams’ score.

“The scene that always gets to me is when Catherine O’Hara finally arrives back home, and says, ‘Oh, Kevin, I’m so sorry,’ which still makes me cry,” Johnson added.

Back on Lincoln Avenue, Martin, a local real estate agent, said while very few scenes were actually filmed in the interior of her neighborhood’s most famous house, the village of Winnetka was the backdrop for several other scenes in the film.

Kevin’s visit to Santa’s workshop was filmed at Chestnut Court, adjacent to the Winnetka Village Hall.

The Grand Food Center, 606 Green Bay Road, is where Kevin shops for groceries, and gets the third degree from a suspicious cashier.

Hubbard Woods Park, and the pharmacy, is where Kevin buys a toothbrush at 940 Green Bay Road, which is now a Graeter’s Ice Cream.

In nearby Wilmette, officials at Trinity United Methodist Church even give a nod to the film on their website, stating: “To some, we are the ‘Home Alone’ church from the 1990 movie; to others, we are the imposing Gothic Revival on the corner of Lake and Wilmette. But we are more than movies or architecture, more than stone or mortar. We are your neighbors, even your friends.”

Trinity United Methodist Church, 1024 Lake Ave., Wilmette, was used as a location in “Home Alone.”

Martin said she while was well aware that for legions of fans in the U.S., watching “Home Alone” each holiday season is a beloved family tradition, during a recent trip abroad she discovered the film’s global appeal.

“We were hiking in Kenya, and when a man who was taking our photo asked where we were from, I made the movie sign with my hand, and said, ‘Home Alone,’ and he was so excited, he wanted to take a picture of me,” Martin said. “People all over the world love ‘Home Alone.’ After they made the movie in our neighborhood, the crowds came, and they’ve never really left.”

kcullotta@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @kcullotta