A candid conversation with Stacy Bakker

According to Stacy Bakker, he ‘fell’ into building. “My nanna told me to go into a trade,” says the founder of building company Bakker Built. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I left school and all my mates were going into teaching, farming or carpentry, so I jumped into a pre-apprenticeship for carpentry.”

Stacy completed his apprenticeship in his home country of New Zealand and, after getting some experience running jobs himself as a fully qualified tradie, he set out on a backpacking adventure across the globe in 1999. 

“I backpacked through Hawaii, Canada, the UK and Europe before heading back to New Zealand via India and Thailand,” says Stacy, who worked as a carpenter in London along the way. “You learn a lot more about your craft once you’re out of your apprenticeship and working for yourself. I worked in London, mostly, where I got to learn a lot of different tricks from a lot of different people.”

Drawn by the promise of sunshine and beaches, Stacy relocated to Sydney in 2000, where he met his wife, Melissa, completed Certificate IV in building and construction and got his builders' licence. It wasn’t until 2003 that Stacy considered starting his own business, however.

“Bakker Built was started in 2003 when our first son, Oliver, was born. I knew I didn’t want to work for other people and I wanted to give my son the best I could, so I started my own contract carpentry business,” says Stacy. While the work itself came easy to Stacy, the business side of things presented some hurdles. “I’ve always been pretty good at my craft, but the hardest thing was not getting paid for some jobs – especially with a young family to support.”

After a few years establishing Bakker Built – and working on some award-winning homes with the best builders in Sydney, Stacy knew he wanted to strike out on his own as a builder. “I wanted to take more ownership and build homes myself. Once I started, I was like a duck to water – it came really easy to me and felt like a natural progression from carpentry.”

It was 2018 when Bakker Built won its first award through the Master Builders Housing and Excellence Awards for a home in Avalon owned by Sally Farrugia of Farrugia Design. “We worked on a skeleton crew of just two or three people some days, working 12-hour days, four days a week, living away from home and commuting back for a three-day weekend,” says Stacy. “It was tough but we got through it. It was the first house we entered into the awards – a really beautiful home – and to bag an award from the industry, for Sally and for my team, it was bloody lovely!”

“We do everything we can to deliver the best we can; our motto is ‘quality without compromise’ because anybody can do ‘ordinary’ but we want to do ‘extraordinary’,” says Stacy of his business. “I want to keep evolving and for Bakker Built to be considered at the top of the game – which I think we are – and the product we deliver is special. I want to build bigger and better homes, to keep challenging myself. The most fulfilling part of this job always has been and always will be the happy clients – and leaving those clients as friends.”

And as for Oliver, the child that inspired it all, one wonders whether he’ll be joining his father in the family trade? Stacy is more than happy to report that while Oliver is off to university to study psychology, younger son Charlie is looking to do a school-based apprenticeship in carpentry. “He’s joining the cult!”

See more projects by Bakker Built on ArchiPro.