
The biggest consignment house ever for kids?
A consignment plus store in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD, Hertel Home has had its ups and downs.
Its opening was delayed by nearly two years.
Now the shop is back on track with a fresh lease of life and the return of a little boy.
The store was built in the 1980s as a school consignment store and opened in 1987.
But in 2013, it was taken over by a Chinese company and renamed Hertel Homes.
Since then, Herteels owner Andrew Hertel has been building the shop out of the scrap materials of his life.
“The whole premise of the shop was that it was a consignment business, so it was actually about consignment,” Mr Hertel said.
“We were always very careful not to waste anything.”
He said when the shop opened, it had only one purpose: to bring in the kids.
“It was for our kids to have the ability to have an education, that’s what we were trying to do, and we weren’t trying to make money for ourselves.”
They had a school that they were interested in having kids.
They’d have to pay the rent, but they could do whatever they wanted with it.
“The shop opened its doors on the same day as the Sydney Opera House opening, but the original owner had to make a quick decision about where to place his new shop.”
I thought about where I could build my own house and that was where I was going to be,” Mr Shetel said of his decision.”
When I was making the decision I was actually quite shocked to find that it had been built by the Chinese company.
“The store has remained open, and has grown over the years.
In 2013, the shop held its first ever children’s sale, with over 700 children participating.
Today, the store has expanded into a second shop, which will be open from tomorrow.”
This store is a bit of a dream shop for me because we actually have a children’s home and we’ve done a lot of work in that space,” Mr Hellington said.
Topics:consignment,children,home,melbourne-3000,vic,sydney-2000First posted October 03, 2018 09:27:33Contact Anna FongMore stories from New South Wales