Woolcock Partners auctioneer Michael Walsh started the auction with a vendor's bid of $850,000 after total silence greeted his calls for an opening bid of $1 million.

"That wonderful silence of the country, isn't it marvellous," he quipped. Mr Walsh worked hard to coax two competing bidders to add a little to their bids before accepting that negotiations would continue behind closed doors.

Mr Walsh started proceedings with a brief history of the property, even suggesting a possible front-page story in The Sunday Examiner should the property sell.

He said that it was first offered for public sale in 1991 after belonging to members of the Pitt family for more than 130 years. Many descendants of the Pitt family were among those at the auction.

They included Mary Williams and her brothers Lawrence, Len and Bob Pitt.

Also present was former owner - and listing agent - Bob Shaw who bought the property from the Pitt family and undertook the major renovations still evident today.

A major health scare saw Mr Shaw seek a quieter lifestyle, and he sold the property in 2001. "If I was a bit younger, (the house) would not have been on the market today," Mr Shaw said. "I'd have bought it back long ago."

Malcolm Phillips, of Norwood, said before the auction that if he could be sure he'd win Tattslotto, he'd buy the house "for sure".

Len Pitt said that titles to the land were granted to a man called Solomon in 1845.

"Then Cotton bought it (that same year) and had it for sale in 1854," he said.

"It didn't sell until 1861 or `62 when our great-grandfather bought it and it was in our family until about 1991."

Mr Pitt said that town water was connected to the house in about 1945 and power was added in the 1960s.