Cranbrook Home Builders

Cranbrook sits less than an hour’s drive north of Albany, in broadacre grain country with cleared paddocks and views east to the Stirling Range. We understand what building here takes, because we have been creating homes across regional Western Australia since 1992, from Kalbarri in the north to Albany in the south. The Rural Building Co. is an award-winning WA builder, proudly built by WA Country Builders (BC11422), and we design for people who value craftsmanship and a real connection to the land.

Cranbrook is the main town of the Shire of Cranbrook, 93 km north of Albany on the Albany Highway, with Stirling Range National Park on its eastern doorstep. The township grew up around the Great Southern Railway in 1889 and was gazetted in 1899. It is still a working grain town, with a major receival point for harvested grain and a primary school that opened in 1893.

Blocks here fall into two groups. There are a handful of small townsite lots close to the school and the caravan park, and then there is broadacre farmland, with foothill and salt-lake country running east and north. The two need different homes. If you have found the right paddock and you are not sure how a house should sit on it, we understand, and that is the conversation we start with.

Our designs work with those differences. Verandahs run deep enough to shade a west wall, raking ceilings follow the roofline, and windows are placed for the view rather than the street. Whether it is a family home on a townsite lot or a homestead on the farm, we build for your block.

The townsite itself is small. The 2021 Census counted 505 people across the Cranbrook locality, and Cranbrook Primary School teaches about 60 children from Kindergarten to Year 6 across three multi-age classes. It has been an Independent Public School since 2018.

Townsite lots are the one place around Cranbrook where you build to a street rather than a paddock. The Kanowna or The Brookside suit a lot this size, with living areas turned north.

East of town the land rises into the Stirling Range, and much of the national park sits inside the shire boundary. It is National Heritage listed as one of the world’s top ten biodiversity hotspots, with over 1,500 plant varieties.

Blocks on this side of the district are the ones with a real outlook. The Point View or The Bush View are drawn for sites like these, with the main living areas facing the view.

Sukey Hill Lookout sits 5 km east of the townsite off Salt River Road, with views over the salt lakes north and east of Cranbrook. On this side of town the ground runs from foothill country into salt-lake flats.

That is worth knowing before you settle on a house pad. The Rivergums Skillion or The Marri View suit a long, low site where the house follows the ground rather than sitting on top of it.

South of Cranbrook, Tenterden is a farming locality rather than a town. The country is rolling farmland broken up by granite hills, creeks and woodland, and it sits on the traditional lands of the Kaneang people. St Mildred’s Anglican Church there is heritage listed.

Blocks are large and there is no street to build to. The Blaxland Retreat or The Karridale Retreat suit a working farm block, both with wide verandahs and generous living zones.

Frankland River sits at the western end of the Shire of Cranbrook, where the soils turn to well-drained gravelly loam and the country runs into forest. Olive farming is part of the local mix, and the locality has its own primary school teaching Kindergarten to Year 6.

Forest-fringe blocks call for a home that can sit among trees rather than clear them. The Julimar Retreat or The Daintree Retreat both work on sites like these.

Cranbrook’s neighbouring localities include Kendenup, Tambellup, Broomehill, Amelup and Mount Barker, and we build across all of them. It is the block rather than the boundary that changes the design.

On open farmland The Evolution Farmhouse or The Hinterland Retreat both suit a site with room around it. Tell us where the block is and which way it faces, and we will tell you what works.