Split Level
Wattle Court Southern Highlands
Split Level Southern Highlands
A home that follows the land
Very little land is perfectly flat. Whether you are on a rural block or a standard lot in a new estate, chances are there is a fall across it somewhere.
The instinct is to cut a flat pad and drop a standard plan onto it. Sometimes that is the right call. More often it is the expensive answer, and it buries the best part of the block under retaining walls.
A split level home does the opposite. It steps down the slope in two or three levels, following the natural contour rather than fighting it. You keep the outlook, you keep the connection to the garden, and you spend a good deal less on moving dirt.
It is the home Dave most enjoys designing, and after more than three decades building on Highlands ground, it is the design approach this region asks for more than any other.
Why split level suits the Highlands
On a sloping block, a single level home means one of two things. Either you cut into the high side and build retaining to hold it back, or you fill the low side and sit the house up on a bank. Both cost money and neither improves the home.
Splitting the levels spreads the house across the fall instead. The earthworks reduce, the retaining reduces, and your floor levels sit close to where the ground already sits. On a steeper block that difference is substantial.
There is also the view. A home that steps down the slope gives each level its own aspect, and it lets you put the living areas where the outlook is best rather than where the flat spot happens to be.
Natural zoning across two levels
The practical joy of a split level is how cleanly it separates the home.
Put the living, kitchen and entertaining on one level and the bedrooms on the other, and you get real separation without long hallways or a full second storey. Noise stays where it belongs. Teenagers get their own end of the house. Guests have somewhere to stay that isn’t next to the family bathroom.
It works just as well the other way for families with young children, keeping everyone together on the one level and putting the rumpus, the media room or a home office down below.
Because the levels are only a few steps apart, the home still feels connected. You are not climbing a full flight of stairs to get to bed, so you keep the feel of a single storey home with the zoning of a two storey one.
For clients building their forever home, that half flight matters. It is far easier to live with over the long term than a standard staircase, and it is one of the reasons split level designs are so popular with downsizers here.
Any of our designs can become a split level
You do not have to choose between our home design range and a home that suits your block.
Any of our Habitat designs can be reworked into a split level as a modified design, and it is one of the more common modifications we do. We take the plan you like, find the natural break point in the layout, and step it to suit the fall of your land.
Sometimes that is a simple split between the living wing and the bedroom wing. Sometimes it means reworking the entry, the garage level and the flow through the whole home. Either way you start from a proven design rather than a blank page, which keeps the cost and the timeline closer to a standard build than a full custom one.
If you would rather start from scratch, we design fully custom split level homes as well, shaped entirely around your block and your brief.
Ready to work with the slope?
Whether you already have your land or are still weighing up your options, Dave and his team would love to help bring your dream home to life. Get in touch and book a meeting with one of our Consultants today.
