Residential · high end
Architect-designed homes and substantial renovations in South Australia and Victoria. Documented sets nobody has built before, finishes with lead times measured in months, and a contract administered the way a commercial one is.
The case for a commercial builder
This is the one residential category where being a commercial builder is straightforwardly an advantage rather than a trade-off.
A high-end house is a one-off documented set, drawn by an architect, with details that have not been built before, finishes sourced rather than selected from a range, and a client who expects to understand what everything costs. That is a description of a commercial fitout with a different address on it.
The skills it rewards are the ones we use daily: reading a documented set properly before pricing it, tendering each trade on the drawings, identifying the long-lead items in the first fortnight, coordinating trades whose work overlaps in the same ceiling, and administering a contract in writing so that a change is a decision rather than an argument.
What we take
Up to two storeys, on documentation prepared by your architect, or under a design and construct contract where the design and the price move together. Difficult sites, significant level change, retaining and complex ground conditions are the norm rather than the exception in this category.
Structural alteration to an existing home, often while part of it stays occupied. Temporary support, staged weatherproofing, and the discipline of protecting what is already finished while working next to it.
Where a local heritage listing or a character overlay governs what can change and what has to be retained or reinstated. The approval path and the build method are the same conversation, and starting it late is expensive.
Hydronic and ducted systems, home automation, integrated audio visual, pool and landscape services, and the coordination between them. The ceiling space is where these projects are won or lost, and it is worth resolving on paper first.
Custom joinery and stone are the longest lead and the least forgiving items on the job. We treat them as a procurement problem from week one rather than a finishing trade.
The build is rarely the risk on a house like this. The selections are.
Bespoke joinery and finish · library image
How we protect the date and the number
Every selection listed with the date after which it costs time rather than money. Issued at contract signing and updated fortnightly.
Each package priced against the documented set, so you can see the cost of each part of the house and make real decisions about it.
Priced, issued and signed before the work proceeds. On a bespoke house there will be variations. There does not need to be a surprise.
Not a supervisor with eleven other sites. That is a deliberate limit on how much work we carry at once.
Questions
Yes, and that is the usual arrangement in this category. We can also price early, while the design is developing, which is generally cheaper than discovering the number at tender.
Yes. It suits clients who want one contract and one point of accountability for both the design and the price. It suits less well where the client wants complete control of the design without a commercial constraint on it.
With a written variation, priced before the work happens. Changing your mind on a bespoke house is normal and we plan for it. What causes damage is changing it verbally and discovering the cost at the next claim.
On a one-off design the comparison usually runs in our favour, because we price the documented set from first principles rather than treating everything non-standard as a variation on a system built for repetition. You see the cost of each part of the house and you decide where to spend.
Two storeys. Both our South Australian licence and our Victorian domestic registration carry that condition, and we publish it rather than let you find out at contract.
South Australia and Victoria. We do not hold a residential builder licence in New South Wales and do not take residential work there.
An early price against a developing design is worth more than an accurate one against a set that is already too expensive to build.
Talk to a construction directorRelated