Extension · Detached garage and living above, linked by a hall
Clareville.
A Clareville extension built as its own structure: a new garage with living space above, set apart from the main house and joined to it by a connecting hall — adding room without crowding the original home.
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The brief.
The owners needed more space and a garage, without building over or crowding the original house. The answer was a separate structure: a garage at ground level with living space on top, set apart from the main home.
The plan.
We built the new garage-and-living wing as its own building and joined it to the main house with a connecting hall, so the two work as one home day to day while staying structurally and visually distinct.
Building in Clareville.
Northern Beaches Council was formed in 2016 from the merger of Manly, Pittwater and Warringah councils, and the legacy LEPs still apply — so the controls on a site depend on which pre-merger council it sat in. Clareville falls under Pittwater LEP 2014, and the Pittwater DCP carries the toughest coastal-hazard and steep-slope controls on the Beaches. Substantial residential DAs here typically run 6–10 months, longer if the site sits in a Coastal Vulnerability Area, and bushfire (BAL) ratings bite on the bushland-fringe blocks.
Clareville sits on the Pittwater side of the peninsula — sloping, bush-fringed blocks above the water, where salt-air detailing, slope and access shape renovation work as much as they shape new builds. Much of the stock is 1960s–80s housing on blocks too good to knock down, which makes substantial renovation the common project type.
Walk a Varloch block with us.
30 minutes, on a job, with someone from the team. Microsoft Teams works too if you’d rather start there. No quote pressure — just an honest look at how we build.
