Carlton North home of Enoteca Sileno sold to homebuyer

A discerning Melbourne homebuyer has picked up a vintage slice of Carlton North culture after thinking it would sell for more than they would have paid for it.

The original home of local Italian food and wine institution Enoteca Sileno at 21-23 Amess St sold the day after its October 12 auction for an undisclosed sum above $2.1 million.

It had been passed in at $2.05 million after two competing developers didn’t get it to an acceptable figure, with the eventual sale price falling in the top half of a $2-2.2 million guide.

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Woodards Carlton agent Jack Resic says the buyer hadn’t bid at the auction.

Vintage charm.

“We had another party who had been watching it who thought it would sell for more than the quoted range. He came through on the Sunday and we sold it to him that day,” he says.

“He’s going to live there. That was always what we anticipated (a buyer would do).”

Resic says the buyer was a local and had been attracted to the “good size” on offer.

The 437sq m property was listed as having four bedrooms and two bathrooms.

The property has seen its fair share of wine.

Enoteca Sileno founder Gino Di Santo established the retail showroom at the Amess St site in 1982, after migrating to Australia from Italy post war.

It was opened by the Italian ambassador, the first place in Australia that specialised in Italian wines and the first business, as far as the family knows, to use the word Enoteca, which means wine shop, wine bar or casual restaurant where wine is the main attraction.

The business, now under the direction of Mr Di Santo’s daughter Rosemary and her husband, John Portelli, moved to its current site on the corner of Lygon and Richardson streets in 2004.

It sells products such as olive oil, craft beer and sauces, runs cooking classes and offers dine-in and takeaway delicacies from its much larger 920 Lygon St home.

Resic previously told the Herald Sun the family had owned the Amess St property “since the early 1950s” and had used it for storage since moving address but it was time to sell.

This article from The Herald Sun originally appeared as “Enoteca Sileno: original home of Carlton North icon sold”.