Aidan Devine
Updated 21 Oct 2023, 3:25pm
First published 21 Oct 2023, 3:07pm
An overgrown Enmore has sold at auction. Picture: Julian Andrews
They called it Sydney’s Angkor Wat house. It was a shell of a home festooned with graffiti that was abandoned to nature for so long that trees had taken root inside. And now the inner west property has sold for $1.725m.
The uninhabitable house went to auction Saturday with no roof and an interior filled with loose bricks and rubble that were once part of the second floor.
Many of the open air rooms were covered by a canopy of foliage and sheets of corrugated iron blocked some windows. Litter was strewn across the front yard, including spray paint cans.
The overgrown Enmore home has drawn comparisons to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, a 900-year-old temple complex that became subsumed by the surrounding jungle over time.
The property had no roof. Picture: John Appleyard
Developer Anthony Cavlovic outside the Enmore house he bought. Picture: Julian Andrews
The buyer was Anthony Cavlovic, a builder with experience of doing residential projects in the area. He estimated he would need to spend at least $1m on redeveloping the site.
“It’s beautiful,” he joked. “It was all about the potential … I didn’t have any strategy for the auction. If you win, you win.”
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Mr Cavlovic beat nine other registered bidders at the auction, which auctioneer Ben Mitchell said was a high turnout considering the condition.
Bidding started at $1.3m and some within the 40-strong crowd of onlookers could be heard gasping once the bidding hit $1.6m.
There was no floor either and much of the interior was filled with rubble. Picture: Julian Andrews
The Juliett St home had last sold in 2018 to an architect with plans to redevelop the site but no work appeared to be undertaken and the property was in a similar condition to five years ago.
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The price offered under the hammer was $470,000 higher than the $1.255m paid by the seller.
It was marketed by selling agent Bryan Mahlberg of LJ Hooker Newtown as an opportunity for “a new owner with some imagination to design and construct a contemporary home”.
The home sold with DA approval for the existing dwelling to be knocked down, but a neighbour told The Sunday Telegraph that the biggest challenge would be getting approval for a new house.
“It’s a very strict conversation area. It’s difficult to get things through council,” the neighbour said.
Auctioneer Ben Mitchell received an opening bid of $1.3m and 10 bidders registered for the auction. Picture: Julian Andrews
The property pictured in 2018, when it had last sold.
The new buyer aims to replace the home with a modern, two-storey build.
The listing described Juliett St as “Enmore’s best street”.
It is understood the property was used as a boarding house in the 1960s, but was poorly maintained in the years after.
The previous owner, an eastern suburbs lawyer, eventually clipped off one of the levels to stop the home collapsing, according to media reports from 2018.
Recent sales on the street included a property about six houses down that changed hands in August for $2.25m. A townhouse at the other end of the street sold in July 2021 for $2.07m. A four-bedroom house on adjoining road Llewellyn St sold in December for $2.1m.
A Cambodian monk ducks under a short doorway at Ta Prohm, Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Mr Cavlovic said he hoped to build a two-storey modern house on the 227sq m block. The home was one of nearly 800 auctions scheduled for this week.
Damien West – the agent behind the 2018 sale, who has sold plenty of rundown homes in his time – told the Daily Telegraph it was the most derelict house he’d ever seen.
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