The American Football House is a house in

Urbana, Illinois Urbana ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. As of the 2020 census, Urbana had a population of 38,336. It is a principal city of the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, which had 236,000 residents i ...

, United States, famed for its appearance on the cover of

Midwest emo Midwest emo (or Midwestern emo) is a subgenre and scene of emo music that emerged in the Midwestern United States during the 1990s. Employing unconventional vocal stylings, distinct guitar riffs and arpeggiated melodies, Midwest emo bands shift ...

band

American Football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

's 1999 self-titled debut album. The house's interior was also featured on the cover of the band's 2016 self-titled second album. The house has since become "one of music's biggest landmarks", attracting tourism, especially in the

emo Emo () is a genre of rock music characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and from the Washington, D.C., hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands ...

community.

History

Built in 1893, the American Football House is located at 704 West High Street in

, near the campus of the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

. One of the house's earliest residents was Charles M. Webber, who died while living in the house in 1931. Two of Webber's great-great-grandchildren, Adam and Michael Thies, worked at

Polyvinyl Records In polymer chemistry, vinyl polymers are a group of polymers derived from substituted vinyl () monomers. Their backbone is an extended alkane chain . In popular usage, "vinyl" refers only to polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Examples Vinyl polymers are ...

, the

Champaign Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in the state outside the Chicago metr ...

-based record label behind

. In 1980, the house was purchased by local real estate investor Fred Krauss, the father of musicians

Alison Krauss Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer, fiddler and music producer. She entered the music industry at an early age, competing in local contests by the age of eight and recording for the first time at ...

and

Viktor Krauss Viktor Krauss is an American musician who plays acoustic and electric bass. He has released solo albums and has worked as a sideman with many musicians, including his sister, singer and fiddler Alison Krauss. Music career Krauss was born to Fre ...

. It was passed on in the mid-1990s to Viktor, who owned the house until selling it in 2001. By the 1990s, the house had become a popular venue for college parties and

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

concerts. While a student at the university in the late 1990s, photographer and

album cover An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released album, studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to: * the printed paperboard covers typically used to package: ** sets of a ...

artist Chris Strong lived in the basement of the house with his then-girlfriend. No members of American Football ever lived in the house; however, as fellow students at the university, they were friends with Strong and frequently attended parties at the house. When American Football enlisted Strong to design cover artwork for their 1999 self-titled debut album, Strong took "a couple thousand" photographs of the house. The photograph used for 1999's ''American Football'' was a nighttime shot of the house's exterior, tilted upward at the second-floor window. When asked why the band chose this particular image, lead vocalist

Mike Kinsella Mike Kinsella (born March 4, 1977) is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He has been involved in many Illinois-based bands and is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the emo band American Football. Career Kinsella's first ...

said, "we just liked the photo." After American Football's 2000 breakup and 2014 reunion, Strong shot a 2014 music video inside the house for "Never Meant", the opening track on the band's 1999 album. An interior shot of the house's stairwell, also taken by Strong, was featured on the cover of the band's 2016 self-titled reunion album. In 2020, amid the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, American Football performed a

virtual concert A virtual concert, also called V-concert or virtual live, refers to a performance in which the performers are represented by virtual avatars. Virtual concerts can take place in real life, where digital representations of the performers are projec ...

to over 10,000 viewers, set at a replica of the house built in ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus Persson, Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java (programming language), Java programming language, the ...

''.

Ownership

In fall 2022, the American Football House was put up for sale, with rumors indicating that housing developers planned to demolish the house and build a

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...

in its place. On May 5, 2023, American Football announced on social media that they had purchased the house collectively with

, Chris Strong, photographer Atiba Jefferson, and the Chicago-based Open House Contemporary. In a statement on the purchase, Polyvinyl wrote: "Besides being a literal home to its many tenants throughout the years, The American Football House has come to represent a nostalgic dream of possibility and the beauty of the beginning. We could not let that dream go." The house still had tenants at the time of the purchase, but Polyvinyl co-owner

Matt Lunsford Matt Lunsford is the founder and co-owner of Polyvinyl Record Co., an American independent record label headquartered in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Early years In 1994, while attending high school in Danville, Illinois, Lunsford and his then ...

said there are plans for its future. On August 26, 2024, the band listed the American Football House on

Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( , an abbreviation of its original name, "Air Bed and Breakfast") is an American company operating an online marketplace for short-and-long-term homestays, experiences and services in various countries and regions. It acts as a ...

, offering rentals "for artists, creative retreats, events, and nightly stays".

Architecture

The American Football House is a two-story house with white wood

siding Siding may refer to: * Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house * Siding (rail) In rail terminology, a siding is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch lin ...

and a prominent window on the front-facing

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

. Chris Strong described it as "not a terribly well-constructed house". Former resident Jessie Knoles recalled, "The hallway to the kitchen was so small and there was a door to a pantry in the tiny hallway so when the pantry was open, people from the living room couldn't make it to the kitchen."

Legacy

As American Football accrued a

cult following A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The latter is often called a cult classic. A film, boo ...

in the years after their 2000 breakup, the house became the main image that fans associated with the music. In a 2014 interview, Mike Kinsella argued that the main reason why the house has endured as a symbol is that "it's pretty much one of the only images affiliated with the band." The house's iconic status has been compared to the

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

banana print on the cover of ''

The Velvet Underground & Nico ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' is the debut studio album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and the German singer Nico. Released by Verve Records in March 1967, the album underperformed in sales and polarized critics upon releas ...

''. In a 2016 article, ''

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, Habit (psychology), habit or item generally considered morally wrong in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character trait, a defect, an infirmity, or a bad or unhe ...

'' named the American Football House "one of music's biggest landmarks", describing it as one of the most famous tourist attractions in the

community. As of 2023, the house is designated as a "

place of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is s ...

" on

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panorama, interactive panoramic views of streets (Google Street View, Street View ...

. Some fans have etched an "X" into the sidewalk to mark the exact location where Strong stood to take the iconic photograph from the 1999 album. In 2024, the

chiptune Chiptune, also called 8-bit music (although not all chiptune is 8-bit music), is a style of electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video gam ...

/rock band

Anamanaguchi Anamanaguchi is an American chiptune-based pop and rock band from New York City. The band has four members: lead songwriters and guitarists Peter Berkman and Ary Warnaar, bassist James DeVito, and drummer Luke Silas. Anamanaguchi combines digit ...

moved into the house to collectively write their third full-length LP, ''Anyway'', which released in August 2025 on Polyvinyl Records.

References

External links