📽 A Christmas Story Trivia - test your knowledge
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🎄 The Quirky, Brilliant, Absolutely Bonkers Story Behind Cleveland’s A Christmas Story House
For Clevelanders, the sight of a leg lamp glowing in a Tremont window isn’t a surprise - it’s a signpost. It means you’ve reached one of our most iconic holiday landmarks, beloved, quirky, and unmistakably ours.
And the real story behind this house?
It’s even stranger than the movie.
Let’s rewind.
🎬 When a Modest 1983 Movie Became a Cleveland Legend
When A Christmas Story came out in 1983, it landed… softly. People liked it fine, but it wasn’t a blockbuster. It gained momentum slowly, like a snowball rolling down an Ohio hill: the annual TV marathons, the nostalgic quotes (“You’ll shoot your eye out!”), the cult following, the obsession.
Meanwhile, in Tremont, an unassuming house quietly sat at 3159 W. 11th Street - until it suddenly became the gravitational center of Christmas nerddom.
Because yes:
those exterior scenes in the movie?
Filmed here.
In Cleveland.
Not Indiana.
Which brings us to my favorite part of this story:
The Leg Lamp King.
🦵 The Man Who Bought the House… With Leg Lamps
Enter Brian Jones, a former Navy intelligence officer who, in a plot twist worthy of a Hallmark-meets-offbeat-indie film, found himself grounded - literally - after being medically disqualified from flight school.
He was devastated.
His dad, trying to cheer him up, sent him a hand-crafted replica of the movie’s famous Major Award leg lamp.
This one act changed Brian’s entire life trajectory.
He looked at the lamp and thought:
“People would actually buy these.”
And thus, in his garage, he launched a leg-lamp-making empire.
Not joking.
This is real.
His business took off, and by 2004 he had enough money to do something beautifully deranged:
👉 He bought the actual house from A Christmas Story on eBay.
for $150,000.
And then he decided to restore it - not to its real-life condition, but to the fictional interior from the movie, which had been filmed on a soundstage.
This meant gutting the entire house and rebuilding it to resemble a 1940s working-class home, complete with rotary phones, vintage appliances, patterned linoleum, and of course…
A leg lamp in the window.
🔧 A Restoration Project That Makes Zero Sense and Also Perfect Sense
The interior of the movie was never filmed inside the actual house. So Brian had to recreate everything from scratch by pausing the movie frame-by-frame and matching:
the wallpaper
the doorknobs
the kitchen cabinets
the staircase details
the radio
the exact shade of green tile
He even recreated the famous basement furnace, the one that belches out the chaos-swears.
And he didn’t stop at the house.
Nooooo.
He went on to:
buy two additional houses nearby
turn one into a museum filled with props and memorabilia
turn the other into a gift shop
begin manufacturing thousands of leg lamps
welcome over 50,000 visitors a year
This man built an entire Christmas pop-culture micro-economy.
🎄 The Fans, the Chaos, the Christmas Pilgrims
People come from everywhere to see this house.
They:
reenact scenes
take photos with the leg lamp
stick their tongues on the (safe, vacuum-powered) flagpole
buy Red Ryder BB gun ornaments
wear pink bunny suits
book overnight stays in the house (!!!)
propose marriage in the living room
It’s bizarre and wonderful and the most Cleveland thing ever.
And because no great Cleveland historical treasure is complete without drama…
🧨 The Neighborhood Chaos + The “Is Someone Buying This House?” Saga
The house’s popularity made Tremont… lively.
Neighbors complained about crowds and parking.
Tour groups became constant.
People wandered onto porches that were not part of the exhibit.
At one point, the police were called because a tourist tried to take a “souvenir” doorknob.
Then in 2022, the internet melted down when the owner announced that the entire property was going up for sale.
Rumors swirled that:
superfans were forming a buyer’s consortium
unnamed celebrities were bidding
Ralphie himself (actor Peter Billingsley) might buy it
someone wanted to turn it into condos (how dare they)
In November 2023, after the site had been listed for sale previously, longtime CEO Joshua Dickerson acquired an equity stake and became Managing Partner of The House From A Christmas Story. The museum is no longer up for sale - tours and overnight stays continue under new management.
📺 Meet the new owner here: youtube.com
Amongst all the shifting ownership status, one thing remains constant:
Cleveland will protect this house like it’s a historic cathedral.
And in a way… it is.
Because where else can you go to celebrate a fictional family’s BB-gun-related crisis and also buy a lamp shaped like a sexy leg?
Exactly.
A Christmas Story Trivia
See how much you know about this iconic cult classic:
Much Love,
P.S. Hungry for something other than cookies & turkey? Check out this insider guide of over 40 of Cleveland’s favorite restaurants - all recommended by nine of our top local chefs! 🍽️🍤🥙
P.P.S. Don’t forget to grab your ticket to our upcoming Victorian Christmas Tea!
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