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Making quality the priority
Perth-based builder Atrium Homes has been designing and building luxury homes to fit unique customer specifications for more than 25 years.
Bill Marcolina founded Atrium Homes in 1989 with his father Wilhelm Marcolina Senior, and it remains very much a ‘family business’ today. Following his father’s retirement, Bill has continued to run the business as Managing Director alongside his wife Pat and, in more recent years, their twin sons Daniel and Adam.
As the Marcolina family has grown, so has Atrium Homes. What began as a small building operation ran out of Bill and Pat’s own home is now an award-winning luxury home builder that designs and constructs around 40-45 premium homes a year. The company has approximately 27 staff excluding tradespeople and tends to build large executive homes valued between $500,000 and $3 million.
Sales Manager Rod Dawes joined the company 18 years ago, so has been there for much of Atrium Homes’ journey. Having worked closely with Bill for many years, he reckons he has witnessed first-hand how the company secured its reputation for quality.
“Bill will build a customer’s house in the same manner as he would build his own,” Rod remarks.
“He takes a very hands-on approach, and will never take shortcuts. He will go out to building sites at least once a week to personally check the work is up to the high standard he requires. If something’s not right then it gets fixed, no question.”
Custom-built luxury
Atrium Homes offers customers two basic home-building options: Pre-Designed and Atrium Design Studio. The award-winning Pre-Designed series offers customers a selection of luxury family homes available in both single and two-storey designs, with a choice of elevations and floor plans. For customers who want something unique, the Atrium Design Studio will design a unique home from scratch to provide a living environment tailored perfectly to them.
Atrium builds many homes that are very grand and classical in their styling, boasting sweeping staircases and marble floors and pillars. Its aptitude in creating such grandeur is a big draw for customers, however the company is equally adept at building homes marked by their minimalism and modernity.
“We give each customer a personal service and will build whatever they want,” says Rod.
“The look of a house is a very personal thing and I think the most important thing for any builder is to listen to what the customer wants, rather than trying to impose your ideas on them. At Atrium we take the time to understand the requirements and features that customers are seeking in their new home, because they’re the one paying the money and living in the end product.”
Through providing a complete home building package, including design, build and maintenance, Atrium can save customers time and money and also provide a richer service than its competitors. The company takes particular pride in the creativity of its in-house designers, whose greatest talent lies in creating enjoyable living spaces with special features such as lifts, wine cellars and elaborate outdoor entertaining areas.
“The look of a house is a very personal thing and I think the most important thing for any builder is to listen to what the customer wants, rather than trying to impose your ideas on them. At Atrium we take the time to understand the requirements and features that customers are seeking in their new home.”
– Rod Dawes, Sales Manager
Going the extra mile
Atrium’s bulging awards cabinet shows that its exceptional attention to detail has not gone unnoticed. The company won its first awards from the Housing Industry Association (HIA) and Master Builders Association (MBA) in 1995 and a year hasn’t gone by since without Atrium winning at least one award. Within the first two months of 2014 it has won three accolades already: MBA Best Display Home Winner ($550,000-$650,000), MBA Overall Display Home of the Year Finalist and MBA Contract Home Finalist ($800,000-$1,000,000).
Crucially, Atrium’s customers love its work just as much as the experts. This much is clear from the questionnaires Atrium began distributing a year ago to customers that have been living in their new homes for six months. The questionnaire invites customers to assess every step of the home-building process, from initial meetings, through construction, to aftercare. The responses were tallied up just before Christmas 2013 and the overwhelming positivity surprised even Rod.
“Pretty much 95% of clients responded, and 92% of them said they would build with us again and recommend us to their family,” he remarks.
“We believe that figure of 92% is quite magnificent, because you never know what you’re going to get when you run an open-ended survey. That result shows that we must be doing something right.”
Atrium adds extra value to the customer’s experience by making other household items such as fridges and dishwashers available to them at wholesale prices, through its large network of suppliers.
“There are a lot of additional expenses when you move into a new house, so if we can save our customers a bit of money and the suppliers are happy, then why not?” says Rod.
A reputation to uphold
No matter how much positive feedback Atrium receives, Rod assures that it will never rest on its laurels. The company analyses every aspect of the business, so that it can see whether there’s anywhere it could improve. “You should always strive to improve and make adjustments wherever you can, because there’s always a new product coming in or a new way of doing something,” Rod remarks.
Atrium will be showing off its latest ideas in two new display homes set to open this year: one in Coogee and another in Apple Cross. Rod says that the launch of these display homes is always an exciting event, which draws people from far and wide. The company is currently running a series of television commercials, featuring walkthrough footage from some of Atrium’s existing display homes.
The company will move into a new, larger office in July, which should help make its various business processes easier and more efficient. Looking further ahead, Atrium’s greatest aspiration is simply to continue refining what it does and finding even better ways to improve the customer experience.
“Ensuring we maintain our strong reputation is crucial, because so much of our business comes from previous customers or from the friends and family they’ve referred us to,” says Rod.
“And I think it’s remarkably comforting to know that people are going out there and spreading the good word for us.”
www.atrium-homes.com.au