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Established | 2006 (House built in 1895, though some accounts date back as early as 1870) [1] [2] |
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Location | 3159 W 11th St. Cleveland, Ohio 44109 USA |
Website | A Christmas Story House |
A Christmas Story House is an attraction and museum in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. The 19th-century Victorian, which was used in the exterior and some interior scenes of Ralphie Parker's house in the 1983 film A Christmas Story , was purchased by a private developer in 2004 and has been restored and renovated to appear as it did in the film both inside and outside. The museum is part of a complex of four buildings devoted to the film and is open to the public year round.
The screenplay for A Christmas Story is based on material from author Jean Shepherd's collection of short stories, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash . The house that appears in the film is located at 3159 W 11th Street, Cleveland, Ohio. [3] For the film adaptation of these stories, director Bob Clark reportedly sent scouts to twenty cities before selecting Cleveland for exterior filming. Cleveland was chosen because of Higbee's Department Store. Vice-president Bruce Campbell took on the project hoping to get a boost in sales from the attention the filming would create. Higbee's is ultimately featured in three scenes in the film. Appropriately, the fictional boyhood home of Ralphie Parker is on Cleveland Street, the name of the actual street where Shepherd grew up. [4] The exterior shots and some interior shots of the house and neighborhood where Ralphie lives were filmed in the Tremont section of Cleveland's West Side. Producers chose the home because of its proximity to downtown and it bordered the Cuyahoga River Valley offering views of the steel mills in the valley.
The 2022 sequel A Christmas Story Christmas was filmed in Eastern Europe and thus replicas of the house and others in the neighborhood were constructed there for filming. [5] The current owners of the building declined access to the production to scan the house and surrounding neighborhood for reference purposes. [6]
In December 2004, Brian Jones, a San Diego entrepreneur and fan of the film since childhood, bought the house on eBay for $150,000. [7] 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. [8] The previous owners had reconfigured the house, installing modern windows and covering the original wood siding with blue vinyl. Watching the movie frame by frame, Jones drew detailed plans of the interiors, which had originally 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. [9]
Jones also purchased the house across the street from the Christmas Story House and converted it into A Christmas Story House Museum, which contains some of the props from the film, including Randy's snow suit, the Higbee's window toys, the chalk board from Miss Shields' classroom, hundreds of behind-the-scenes photos, as well as one of the custom-built Daisy Red Ryder BB guns that was used in the filming. In addition, the house to the left of the museum features a gift shop with movie memorabilia and souvenirs.
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 opening weekend. [9]
The house is open for tours daily; both the house and the Bumpus house next door, renovated in 2018, are available for overnight stays. [10] [11]
By November 2022, the entire complex was put up for sale. [12] On November 28, 2023, Joshua Dickerson, a 16-year employee and CEO of The House from A Christmas Story company, was announced as the new owner. [13]
Cleveland, officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States maritime border and lies approximately 60 mi (97 km) west of Pennsylvania. Cleveland is the most populous city on Lake Erie, the second-most populous city in Ohio, and the 54th-most populous city in the U.S. with a population of 372,624 in 2020. The city anchors the Cleveland metropolitan area, the 33rd-largest in the U.S. at 2.18 million residents, as well as the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton combined statistical area with 3.63 million residents. It is the county seat of Cuyahoga County.
Jean Parker "Shep" Shepherd Jr. was an American storyteller, humorist, radio and TV personality, writer, and actor. With a career that spanned decades, Shepherd is known for the film A Christmas Story (1983), which he narrated and co-scripted, based on his own semi-autobiographical stories.
A Christmas Story is a 1983 Christmas comedy film directed by Bob Clark and based on Jean Shepherd's semi-fictional anecdotes in his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, with some elements from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters. It stars Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, and Peter Billingsley, and follows a young boy and his family's misadventures during Christmas time in the 1940s. It is the third installment in the Parker Family Saga.
My Summer Story is a 1994 American comedy film directed by Bob Clark that serves as a sequel to his 1983 film A Christmas Story. Like the previous film, it is based on semi-autobiographical stories by Jean Shepherd, primarily from his book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.
Peter Billingsley, also known as Peter Michaelsen and Peter Billingsley-Michaelsen, is an American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for portraying Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story and A Christmas Story Christmas. He also played Jack Simmons in The Dirt Bike Kid, Billy in Death Valley, and Messy Marvin in a series of commercials for Hershey's Syrup in the 1980s. While an infant, he began acting in television commercials.
Ian Petrella is an American actor and puppeteer.
Higbee's was a department store founded in 1860 in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1987, Higbee's was sold to the joint partnership of Dillard's department stores and Youngstown-based developer, Edward J. DeBartolo. The stores continued to operate under the Higbee name until 1992, when DeBartolo sold his shares to his partners and the chain was re-branded as Dillard's.
Chapel Hill Mall was a shopping mall located in Akron, Ohio, United States. It was built by Richard "R.B." Buchholzer and Forest City Enterprises, and opened in 1967. At its peak the mall featured more than 100 stores, with Sears, JCPenney, and Macy's as anchor tenants. In 2021, after several years of financial issues and ownership changes, the mall was purchased by Industrial Commercial Properties with the intent of turning it into a business park. Within a few months, the mall was permanently closed.
St. Theodosius Cathedral is an Eastern Orthodox church located on Starkweather Avenue in the West Side neighborhood of Tremont in Cleveland, Ohio. Considered one of the finest examples of Russian church architecture in the United States, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. St. Theodosius was the first Eastern Orthodox parish in Cleveland and is currently under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of the Midwest of the Orthodox Church in America. The cathedral is perhaps best known for its appearance in the 1978 Best Picture-winning film, The Deer Hunter, with Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep. It is also seen in the opening credits of Major League.
Tremont is a neighborhood on the West Side of Cleveland, Ohio. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the district sits just south of the Ohio City neighborhood. It is bounded by the Cuyahoga Valley to the north and east, MetroHealth medical center to the south, and West 25th Street and Columbus Road to the west.
A Christmas Story 2 is a 2012 American Christmas comedy film directed by Brian Levant and starring Daniel Stern and Braeden Lemasters. The film is a direct sequel to the 1983 film A Christmas Story and ignores the events of the 1994 film My Summer Story. The film, set six years after the original, follows fifteen-year-old Ralphie as he wishes for a 1939 Mercury Eight convertible for Christmas, but crashes the car before he even owns it. Now, Ralphie and his friends, Flick and Schwartz, must find a way to raise enough money to fix the car before Christmas.
A Christmas Story: The Musical is a stage musical version of the 1983 film A Christmas Story. The musical has music and lyrics written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and the book by Joseph Robinette. The musical takes place in the 1940s in Indiana and focuses on a child named Ralphie, who wants a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christmas.
The Hotel Cleveland is a historic hotel on Public Square in Cleveland, Ohio, opened in 1918. It is today part of the Tower City Center mixed-use complex.
Ohio's 21st senatorial district has historically been based in urban Cleveland, Ohio, and consists primarily of Cleveland's West Side neighborhoods of Ohio City and Tremont; Downtown Cleveland; all of Cleveland's East Side neighborhoods; and the cities of Bratenahl, Cleveland Heights, and Shaker Heights. It encompasses Ohio House districts 9, 10 and 11. It has a Cook PVI of D+33.
A Christmas Story Live! is an American television special that was originally broadcast by Fox on December 17, 2017. It was a live, televised musical remake of the 1983 film A Christmas Story, and incorporated the 2012 stage musical version A Christmas Story: The Musical. The live musical was executive produced by Marc Platt and Adam Siegel, directed by Scott Ellis and Alex Rudzinski, and starred Matthew Broderick, Andy Walken, Maya Rudolph, Chris Diamantopoulos, and Jane Krakowski.
The Parker Family Saga, is a collection of American family-comedies based upon the stories of author Jean Shepherd. The stories originated on Shepherd's radio programs and in his books before being adapted into a stage play, two theatrical films, four made-for-TV films, one straight-to-home video film, one unaired pilot episode for a planned television series, one musical adaptation, one live television adaptation of that musical and one made-for-streaming film.
A Christmas Story Christmas is a 2022 American Christmas comedy film directed by Clay Kaytis from a script by Nick Schenk, who is also one of the executive producers. Produced by Peter Billingsley and Vince Vaughn along with Legendary's Cale Boyter and Jay Ashenfelter, Marc Toberoff and Irwin Zwilling, it is a sequel to the 1983 film A Christmas Story. Billingsley reprises his role as Ralphie Parker alongside Ian Petrella, Scott Schwartz, R. D. Robb, Zack Ward, and Yano Anaya returning as Randy Parker, Flick, Schwartz, Scut Farkus, and Grover Dill, respectively. Additionally Erinn Hayes, River Drosche, and Julianna Layne play Ralphie's wife and kids, with Julie Hagerty acting in the role of Mrs. Parker. Principal photography began in late February 2022 in Hungary and Bulgaria.
The Phantom of the Open Hearth is an American made-for-television family-comedy film, directed by Fred Barzyk and David R. Loxton, with a script written by Jean Shepherd. Produced by Loxton, the film is the first screen adaptation to feature Shepherd's character Ralphie Parker, and is notable for influencing studio interest in A Christmas Story years later. Based on Shepherd's book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash and similar to all the other Parker Family films, the film depicts fictionalized events from his real-life childhood.
The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters is an American made-for-television family-comedy film, directed by Richard Bartlett, with a script written by Jean Shepherd. Produced by Olvia Tappan, the film is the second installment in the Ralph Parker franchise. Based on Shepherd's book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash and similar to all the other Parker Family films, the film depicts fictionalized events from his real-life childhood.
Sokolowski's University Inn was a restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. It was recognized as one of America's Classics by the James Beard Foundation.