A Christmas Story House
Encyclopedia
1983 in film
-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...
movie A Christmas Story
A Christmas Story
A Christmas Story is a 1983 American Christmas comedy film based on the short stories and semi-fictional anecdotes of author and raconteur Jean Shepherd, including material from his books In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. It was directed by Bob Clark...
. It is located in Cleveland, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
's Tremont
Tremont, Cleveland
Tremont is a neighborhood in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. Tremont is one of the oldest parts of Cleveland, and is home to restaurants and art galleries. The district sits just west of the Cuyahoga River and south of the Ohio City neighborhood. Tremont is home to numerous historic churches...
neighborhood, and has been restored to appear as it did in the film. The museum is open to the public year round.
Fiction to film
The film takes place in fictional Hohman, Indiana, the setting of writer Jean ShepherdJean Shepherd
Jean Parker Shepherd was an American raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer and actor who was often referred to by the nickname Shep....
's stories, based on his actual hometown, Hammond, Indiana
Hammond, Indiana
Hammond is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area. The population was 80,830 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hammond is located at ....
. For the film adaptation of these stories, director Bob Clark
Bob Clark
Benjamin "Bob" Clark was an American actor, director, screenwriter and producer best known for directing and writing the script with Jean Shepherd to the 1983 Christmas film A Christmas Story...
reportedly sent scouts
Location scouting
Location scouting is a vital process in the pre-production stage of filmmaking and commercial photography. Once scriptwriters, producers or directors have decided what general kind of scenery they require for the various parts of their work that is shot outside of the studio, the search for a...
to twenty cities before selecting Cleveland for exterior filming. Cleveland was chosen because of Higbee's
Higbee's
Higbee's was a department store founded 1860 in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1992, Higbee's stores were re-branded as part of Dillard's.-History:Higbee's was founded by Edwin Converse Higbee and John G. Hower on September 10, 1860 as Higbee & Hower Dry Goods. The first day of business saw $100 in sales. ...
Department Store. Scouts had been unsuccessful in finding a department store that was willing to be part of the film. Higbee's vice president Bruce Campbell agreed to take on the project on the condition he be allowed to edit the script for cursing. Appropriately, the fictional boyhood home of Ralphie Parker is on Cleveland Street, the name of the actual street where Shepherd grew up. In addition to the house exteriors, Cleveland was the location used for the scenes involving Higbee's department store, despite the fact that there were no Higbee's stores in Shepherd's hometown.
However, Cleveland was only one of several locations used. The school scenes were shot at the Victoria School in St. Catharines
St. Catharines, Ontario
St. Catharines is the largest city in Canada's Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario, Canada, with 97.11 square kilometres of land...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada. The Christmas tree purchasing scene was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, as was the sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
filming of interior shots of the Parker home.
The exterior shots of the house and neighborhood where Ralphie lived were filmed in the Tremont section of Cleveland's West Side. The "...only I didn't say fudge" scene was filmed at the foot of Cherry Street in Toronto; several lake freighter
Lake freighter
Lake freighters, or Lakers, are bulk carrier vessels that ply the Great Lakes. The best known was the , the most recent and largest major vessel to be wrecked on the Lakes. These vessels are traditionally called boats, although classified as ships. In the mid-20th century, 300 lakers worked the...
s are visible in the background spending the winter at Toronto's port, which lends authenticity to the time of year when the film was produced.
Restoration and reconfiguration
In December 2004, Brian Jones, a San DiegoSan Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
and fan of the film since childhood, bought the house on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
for $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
150,000. Jones used revenue from his business, The Red Rider Leg Lamp Company, which manufactures replicas of the "major award" Ralphie's father won in the film, for the down payment. The previous owners had reconfigured
Renovation
Renovation is the process of improving a structure. Two prominent types of renovations are commercial and residential.-Process:The process of a renovation, however complex, can usually be broken down into several processes...
installing modern windows, and covered the original wood siding with blue vinyl
Vinyl siding
Vinyl siding is plastic exterior cladding for a house, used for decoration and weatherproofing, as an alternative to traditional wood siding or other materials such as aluminum or fiber cement siding. It is an engineered product, manufactured primarily from polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, resin, giving...
. Watching the movie frame by frame, Jones drew detailed plans of the interiors — which had been filmed on a Toronto sound stage — and spent $240,000 to gut the structure, reconfigure it to a single-family dwelling, transform it into a near-replica of the movie set, and restore the exterior to its appearance in the film.
A Christmas Story House Museum
Jones purchased the house across the street and converted it into A Christmas Story House Museum, which contains some of the props from the movie, including Randy's snow suit, the Higbee's window toys, and hundreds of behind the scenes photos. The house to the left of the museum features a gift shop with movie memorabilia.The house and museum opened to the public on November 25, 2006, with original cast members attending the grand opening, and the site drew 4,300 visitors during its first weekend.