Are you the type of person who goes crazy about Christmas and obsesses over pop culture? Then we're going to stuff your stocking with great news! It's your chance to live in a home linked to a beloved holiday film.
This five-bedroom, 6.5-bathroom mansion was used in the 1994 remake of "Miracle on 34th Street." The famous house -- all done up in a Normandy farmhouse style and designed by well-known Chicago-area architect Russell S. Wolcott -- is now on the market in the tony community of Lake Forest, IL, for $3.4 million.
The door of the home, located along Lake Michigan and 32 miles north of downtown Chicago, had an uncanny resemblance to the door of the manse in the original 1947 film -- and it clinched the home's starring role.
Parts of the home also played a major role in the movie. "For certain the front door and front entrance, mostly because it was a Dutch door," says Marina Carney, the listing agent. The home has other A-list appearances to its credit, including a feature in House & Garden in 1928.
Built in 1924, the home is loaded with luxury features: custom-painted wallpaper from French company Zuber in the dining room, a wood-paneled study with a fireplace, and a guest wing with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchenette.
"Wolcott was big into air flow, so you have cross-ventilation in most of the house," says Carney.
The sellers, who moved in seven years ago, added a pool, pool house, and ornate gardens. They also converted the third-floor attic into a man cave with window seats and a beamed ceiling. "The owners didn't go cheap on that," says Carney.
Whoever buys the notable address will join a neighborhood worthy of a storybook. "It's an in-town location. You are less than a block from the train station, five blocks to the lake, and you can walk to the library," Carney says. "It's just a very livable house -- comfortable and elegant. It's hard to achieve both. It's a really good family home."