Sam and husband John and their team of investors -John’s brother Brent and Bec Carolan and friends David and Amanda Perryman, have partnered with Rosewood Homes to turn unloved houses into modern masterpieces – for a profit.
They have been buying unloved, unattractive houses throughout Sydney’s upper north shore, knocking them down and replacing them with modern, classics then reselling them at a healthy profit.
Sam Carolan and David Perryman explain their method, sharing their experience working with a difficult site and financial limitations and how Rosewood Homes offered solutions along the way.
“We’ve done a lot of renovations over time through our own business, Skope Constructions, but we have found that knock-down rebuilds with Rosewood Homes are the better way to go, so this is our second project with them” Sam says. “Gina and Adam from Rosewood are great to work with, and if I want to tweak the designs and change some things, it’s not a problem. They are also very aware of cost and time implications in adding features and are upfront so that we too were aware of these costs before committing to too many changes or upgrades”
David explains “Lindfield is a well developed area with a lot of quality homes. We needed to offer a home that was of a higher standard and in a style that would complement the other homes on the street while also ensuring its own eye catching identity. We feel that we’ve achieved this with Rosewood Homes Aspen design incorporating the formal classic Hamptons exterior.”
“I’ve always loved Rosewoods’ take on the Hamptons-style look,” Sam explains. “Because we’re on the North Shore especially there seems to be a lot of homestead-style homes, but no one had really come up with the right Hamptons-style look, which was something a little bit different and fresh for the area. Rosewood Homes bring a more formal Hamptons aesthetic to the streetscape and this suits the area perfectly. And I’ve always loved those colour tones, so I went down that path and it worked really well for us.”
This project was another knock-down rebuild on a carefully chosen site. “We like to look for little red-brick ‘nanna’ homes, the old ones, on a good block of land, and a nice area, which caters for that sort of look,” Sam says.
David explains “The block presented us with a few challenges where we had to work with existing trees and their associated tree protection zone requirements. Rosewood Homes had to present us with solutions to the significant fall on the site and presence of rock. They manipulated the design to reduce the extent of excavation required while achieving finished floor levels that would maximize the homes visual appeal and also took into consideration the swimming pool and landscape levels required to the rear yard. This was all achieved while satisfying our financial limitations.”
When it comes to the roof, Sam says that the sophisticated look of Monier’s Concrete Horizon tiles in Barramundi perfectly complemented the style of the home she wanted to create.
“I’ve always wanted that flat, sleek look with the tile, like the classic Hamptons homes” she says. “Working with Gina and Adam, I just say this is what I’m looking for and this is what I want to do, and they suggest the product. We trust with Rosewood that the product they recommend is in line with our quality requirements, which are high as you can imagine, being in the construction industry ourselves. With Rosewoods’ relationship with Monier spanning over 4 decades, we know it must be a good product.”
“A design priority was to maximise the living/entertaining areas at the back of the house to capitalise on the sunny aspect of the site and to visually connect the swimming pool and backyard landscaping to the main living area of the home.” David says.
“As a mum, to be able to see everyone is really important for me and prospective home buyers, where you can see out the back to the pool and everything, from the kitchen and living areas and family areas,” Sam says.
“I just want indoor-outdoor living – I want to be inside, but feel like I’m outside, and I’m just all about light. If I don’t have natural light and natural spaces and lots of light coming in, I’m terrible. And I think the majority of people can appreciate that. Rosewood helped design the home to capture that natural light by positioning the home and living areas a certain way on the site and then adding features such as skylights and lots of floor-to-ceiling glazing.”
David says, “It’s all these finer details that helped make it easy to sell this home at a profit. Between Rosewood Homes and ourselves, we ticked a lot of boxes for new home buyers and left very little to be desired at this price point.”
Sam mentions, “This home was also HIA finalist in the custom design category under $1million which was no surprise to us. The quality, flow of the floorplan and functionality of the home was flawless.”
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