Lygon St: Property owned by slain gangland figure Alphonse Gangitano’s family goes under the hammer
The property owned by slain gangland figure Alphonse Gangitano at 225 Lygon St, Carlton has just sold under the hammer.
A former Lygon St meeting place of Melbourne’s infamous Carlton Crew owned by surviving members of Alphonse Gangitano’s family has sold to a medicinal cannabis company.
Known as the Black Prince of Lygon St, Gangitano was a key figure in Melbourne’s gangland wars.
The 225 Lygon St property is believed to have hosted Carlton Crew meetings and poker games in the 1990s before the underworld figure was gunned down in the laundry of his Templestowe home in 1998.
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Castran Real Estate boss John Castran handled the auction which soared to a $1.75m sale, $80,000 above its last council valuation and $155,000 after it was called on the market Thursday.
Alphonse Gangitano and Jason Moran at Melbourne Magistrates Court for hearing into bashing at a King St sports bar. Picture: Ben Swinnerton
Virginia Gangitano, The widow of Alphonse Gangitano, at the auction of a Lygon St building on Thursday. Picture: Brendan Beckett
Mr Castran declined to comment on the property’s past or ownership, but a sales contract listed the vendors as Gangitano’s sister Nuccia and widow Virginia McNamara.
Title documents show Nuccia was listed as an owner in 1996, while Ms McNamara was added as the legal representative of the deceased gangland figure in July 1998, just under six months after his death.
On the market for the first time since the family acquired it 50 years ago, it attracted four bidders from three groups — which Mr Castran said was a positive sign for the popular retail and eatery strip.
“It was very heartening to see this for the first auction in Lygon St this year,” Mr Castran said.
“If we did this last year I don’t think we would have got this result.”
The auctioneer takes bids on the Lygon St building connected with the Underbelly-era Carlton Crew. Picture: Brendan Beckett
Nuccia Gangitano, the sister of Alphonse Gangitano, at the auction of a Lygon St building. Picture: Brendan Beckett
Operators of the nearby Doctor Canna medicinal cannabis business purchased the property and said they were looking to expand into an address with more space than their current home a few doors down.
The firm plans to make it their headquarters and said they felt the Lygon St strip had been becoming gradually busier over the past six months.
The double-storey shopfront at 225 Lygon St was stripped bare for the auction, with exposed concrete flooring on its lower level and unvarnished floorboards upstairs.
An information memorandum for the property describes it as a “much-loved identity in the area” and shows it has about 180sq m of floorspace, with 5m of frontage to Lygon St.
The property has 5m of Lygon St frontage.
The building has two levels.
The ground floor is designated as a retail space with a commercial kitchen and bathrooms to the rear where it opens to a second frontage along Lygon Lane. Upstairs, it features two more rooms or office spaces, a cool room and bathroom.
Gangitano bought the home well before the gangland wars that plagued Melbourne and led to his death, with colourful characters Mick Gatto and John Kizon pallbearers at his funeral.
A coroner found underworld figures Jason Moran and Graham ‘The Munster’ Kinniburgh were both at Gangitano’s home around the time of his shooting.
The rear of the property.
Both were later murdered as the violence escalated.
In 2020, Enzo Condello, brother of Mario Condello — another key figure from the Carlton Crew killed in the gangland war, convinced a court to stop the raising of a fibro cement shed in nearby Fitzroy that was used by the gangland figures as a ‘war room’.
The demolition had been sought by Yarra City Council..
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