A modern country retreat bathed in natural light.
A forever home. This pavilion-style build had an emphasis on natural light, complementing the surrounding landscape. A quintessential modern country home, the gable house features sun-drenched interiors framed by the floor-to-ceiling glazing and soaring ceilings. A focus on natural elements connects this build to the landscape.
2022
residential
Exeter nsw
The project was in collaboration with Tziallas Architects and GP Design Structural Engineers.
the result
In late 2019, my wife Jackie and I purchased a vacant 5.5-acre site in Exeter in the Southern Highlands to build our forever home. We were most fortunate to stay one weekend –after settling on the acquisition – at Woodlands Farm B&B (dog-friendly!!) just nearby, where we met the delightful owners, Phil and Margot. Margot proudly showed us through their beautiful home, recently constructed by Gibraltar and designed by Tina Tziallas at Tziallas Architects in Bowral. We immediately called Tina, who met us on-site that Saturday. Within weeks, Tina had sketched out the concept plans for our home, and we were delighted to engage her for the project. Tina then referred us to several builders with whom she had worked over many years, including Luke and Jason Hines at Gibraltar.
We then spent a full day with Luke, visiting several of their projects, including their extraordinary new build in Tallong. We felt immediately at ease in his company and really appreciated his style and commitment to every project. It was an easy decision to contract Gibraltar, as the quality of their builds was absolutely first-class. Everyone we spoke to could not recommend Luke and Jason highly enough. Luke manages the construction business, and Jason handles the earthmoving side – passionate locals who are very proud of what they deliver, and deservedly so.
Jackie and I are experienced home builders, having built four previous homes (in Sydney and the Central Coast) from scratch. We would have to say that our experience dealing with Luke and his team during the 15-month build of our Exeter home has been the best yet. Luke is a master project manager, carefully and skilfully coordinating a raft of quality staff and local trades to deliver on ours and Tina’s vision for our modern country home. His team were all delightful to deal with – always willing to listen and offer solutions that worked for us, both in terms of what we wanted and with a constant awareness of budgetary constraints.
Special mention must also go to Gibraltar’s subcontractors – especially Stuart Reid from Reid Brothers Joinery in Bundanoon, Luke Grima from Apex Electrical, and Scott Drewe from Landscape Life. The joinery fit-out is the best of any home we’ve built to date, and the electrical and landscaping work is of equally high quality – topped off by genuinely lovely people to work with. Top marks as well to Jason and his team (especially Chris) for being absolute experts with large equipment, sculpting our site and, post-build, undertaking substantial heavy landscaping works (including a new dam-dug, lined, and ready in just three days!).
We could not recommend Luke, Jason, and Gibraltar more highly.
It was an easy decision to contract Gibraltar, as the quality of their builds was absolutely first-class.
