Merc.Build designs and builds luxury custom homes, renovations and knockdown rebuilds across Sydney's North Shore, from Mosman and Cremorne to St Ives and Wahroonga, under Builders Licence 377744C. We specialise in generous family homes on the Shore's leafy, often steeply falling blocks.
The North Shore builds differently to the east: bigger blocks, taller trees, deeper setbacks — and a quiet expectation that a new home will honour the garden suburb around it. It suits the way we work.
Family homes with room to breathe
Shore briefs tend toward generosity: five bedrooms, real studies, mudrooms, pools, and gardens that are lived in rather than looked at. On blocks from seven hundred to well over a thousand square metres, the design question is not how to fit everything in but how to compose it — how the house meets the garden, where the afternoon sun lands, how the roofline sits below the tree canopy. We design and build homes that answer those questions for one family in particular.
Trees, slopes and sandstone
The Shore's character is also its engineering brief: significant trees with protection orders, sandstone shelves a metre below the lawn, and falls that can run a full storey across a block. We survey early, design the structure around what the site gives us, and treat rock as an opportunity — benched terraces, undercroft garaging, cellars — rather than a variation waiting to happen.
Knockdown rebuild territory
Much of the Shore's post-war housing stock sits on land that has long outgrown it, which is why the region leads Sydney in knockdown rebuilds. Where the numbers favour a rebuild over renovation — and on the Shore they often do — we manage demolition, approvals and the new build as one programme.
Questions.
Do you build on steep or rocky North Shore blocks?
Yes. Steep falls and shallow sandstone are defining conditions on the North Shore, and both reward early engineering. Merc.Build commissions detailed survey and geotechnical work before design starts, then shapes the structure to the site — split levels, benched terraces, undercroft garaging. Rock excavation is priced from real data upfront, not discovered as a variation.
What is the process for a knockdown rebuild on the North Shore?
Feasibility first: we check zoning, tree protections, heritage and bushfire mapping against your goals. Then demolition approval and safe demolition, custom design, a CDC or DA for the new home, and construction — all under one Merc.Build contract. Typical end-to-end duration on the Shore is 20–30 months depending on approval pathway.