Highland Park Home From Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Sells For $1.06 Million
By Kristopher Anderson (originally posted to Flickr as Cameron’s House)
Chicago is home to incredible art, architecture, food, and historical sites but few so revered and of such cultural significance as Highland Park’s own Ben Rose house (aka Cameron’s house from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). Seriously — it’s a piece of American history and we won’t acknowledge it as anything less. After sitting on the market for years, the house has finally found a buyer who appreciates its rich history and sold for $1.06 million.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was John Hughes’ love letter to Chicago. “Chicago is what I am,” Hughes said in a 1986 interview for Seventeen magazine. “The more people who get upset with the fact that I film there, the more I’ll make sure that’s exactly where I film. It’s funny — nobody ever says anything to Woody Allen about always filming in New York. America has this great reverence for New York. I look at it as this decaying horror pit. So let the people in Chicago enjoy Ferris Bueller.” Hughes’ classic romp around the city included many of the landmarks he frequented as a young boy and his own high school.
Set off the beaten path in a wooded ravine, Cameron’s house (370 Beech Street in Highland Park for the curious) was memorable for its stunning architecture and, of course, its famous scene featuring the Ferrari 250 GT. The 1961 Ferrari GT250 was a modified MG sports car, but don’t worry, the producers knew better than to let anything happen to such a rare beauty. Multiple replicas were made for the film and a safety rail was even constructed to prevent the car from making its final home at the bottom of the ravine. An interesting coincidence – original owner and noted photographer Ben Rose once had a car collection in the pavilion just like Cameron’s dad in the film!
Unfortunately, prospective homeowners didn’t quite warm up to the place like Bueller fans did. The sixty-year-old home’s adjustable walls, two separate units and popularity as a pop culture tourist site meant potential buyers were scarce. The $1.06m selling price is well below the original 2009 $2.3m asking price (a 65 percent drop). The new owners (an investment banker and a lawyer, nearby residents and Northwestern University alumni) can look forward to enjoying a truly unique piece of Chicago history though. Landmarks Illinois has called the house “exemplary and notable for its progressive design” by prominent architect A. James Speyer.
If reminiscing about Cameron’s dad’s gorgeous red Ferrari has you hankering for a slick ride of your own, come down to Lexus of Highland Park today and test drive one of our new Lexus models. You can take one of our luxury cars out for a spin and you won’t even have to worry about turning back the odometer.
