Robbie Bower, founder of Bower Construction and Design, talks 50 years of business success

Robbie Bower started off flipping houses in Sydney in the 1970s. Today, she’s the matriarch of a 50-year-old, $100m-plus South Australian building empire. Here’s how she did it.

Robbie Bower at home in North Adelaide, reflecting on building a construction empire over 50 years. Picture: Matt Loxton

When Robbie Bower was in her 20s, she was told it was virtually impossible for a young woman to break into the South Australian building industry.

Instead of getting hung up on the so-called impossibility of the task before her, she chose to focus on the other word in the somewhat negative, unsolicited advice she received … virtually.

She decided then and there she would overcome that.

So she did. In a very big way and can now look back on her career at Bower Construction knowing it’s far from over.

At 80, Robbie Bower is still actively involved in the day-to-day running of the building company she started almost 50 years ago and can be regularly found on the building site when her expertise and guidance is needed.

Bower Interiors started in 1973 and became Bower Construction and Design a few years later (the company celebrated 50 years late last year).

Robbie Bower at home in North Adelaide. Picture: Matt Loxton

Its success has defied the odds on several fronts; not only did Bower smash down the barriers erected around her dream, her company has thrived while more than a thousand building companies have crashed around Australia in the past two years alone.

Bower Construction has always withstood the economic pressures that have sent a couple of major SA builders to the wall last year alone.

It says it has done so based on a strong reputation, consistent client base, tradies who feel more like family than co-workers and a focus on high quality builds.

The ongoing success of the company may also have something to do with Robbie Bower’s ability to handle the pressure … and to never take “No” for an answer.

Robbie Bower as a child in Victoria. Picture: supplied

THE EARLY YEARS

Born in Wales, the daughter of air force parents who moved to Melbourne when she was a young girl, Bower learned at an early age how to overcome setbacks.

When she returned to her Box Hill family home with her parents after a day at the beach as a young child to find it burnt down, her father Richard Power simply got the family a new place to live.

He took on the role of general manager of Connellan Airways in Alice Springs. As a Spitfire pilot during World War II, he was well qualified for the job and instilled in young Robbie a work ethic and a can-do attitude in the face of adversity.

After a few years in the Red Centre, Bower came to Adelaide for boarding school. When she grew up and left the family’s new Adelaide home a few years later, she didn’t settle for the designated career pathways or family pursuits expected of many young women in the late 1950s and early ’60s. Instead she studied at the University of South Australia before heading to London to work as a radiographer.

She soon discovered she could work her day job and make extra money on the side dressing up as a cowgirl in a marketing job selling car polish. She even ended up selling Irish bacon in the basement at Harrods department store.

By the early 1970s, Bower had returned to Australia and was living in Sydney, having married former Olympic skater Mervyn Bower, who was finding it hard to get regular work after his competitive days were finished.

Robbie Bower aged 15. Picture: supplied.

It was time for the new Mrs Bower to step up.

“When he came back to Australia, Mervyn found it difficult to settle into normal work and it was obvious I’d have to get work to keep the family afloat, so I started renovating houses,” she recalls.

So she started buying her own houses, renovating them and flipping them for a tidy profit. “This was not a common practice even for men at the time. For women, it was almost unheard of,” she says.

By the time son Piers was born, they moved back to Adelaide to be with family and get some help with a growing household.

“At that stage, I was really earning the money,” Bower says. “Mum was fantastic helping me raise the children because there was virtually no childcare back then.”

In Adelaide, she continued to buy and renovate homes. Her reputation grew and, with it, a client base.

“I soon found there was good money in this practice even in the smaller market of Adelaide,” she says. “I was so successful at doing this that I managed to put three boys through Saints (college).

Robbie Bower while working in marketing during the 1960s. Picture: supplied

“From a growing list of people who wanted interiors done, I began to get clients who wanted renovations and then eventually people started asking me to build houses from scratch for them.”

It would be convenient to say the rest is history, but it wasn’t quite as straightforward as that.

Bower was newly divorced, raising three boys and, to put it bluntly, didn’t have a builder’s licence.

She started her building career anyway and did whatever she could to get the jobs done, at one point using a licence borrowed from an associate – not an uncommon legal practice at the time.

In due course, Adelaide City Council became aware of the issue of a single mum building homes and intervened.

However, rather than throwing the book at her, Bower says the council gently helped her to obtain her builder’s licence based on the quality of the work she was producing.

“Someone from council contacted me and mentioned they knew what was going on and it might be best for all concerned that I get my own licence,” she recalls.

“What I thought was going to be a major setback and a very difficult process was made easy, with council being very cooperative in helping me gain my licence.”

It made Bower one of the first women in South Australia to hold a full builder’s licence.

Robbie Bower reflects on a remarkable career, which is still going strong.

Robbie in Alice Springs during her early years. Picture: supplied

BUILDING A REPUTATION

By the mid-70s, Bower’s reputation for quality work was spreading, she no longer had to use someone else’s credentials to pitch for the work and was renovating and extending homes across Adelaide.

In 1973, Bower Interiors & Design (which would later evolve into Bower Construction) became official.

While some prospective clients resisted the idea of a woman fixing up their homes, Bower says that ingrained bias rarely extended to the men on the work site.

“Despite what many people might think, the working men at the time, the tradies, were my greatest allies and supporters,” she says.

“And they quickly found out, usually without questioning it, that when I said something had to be done a certain way, it’d better be done that way. That wasn’t always the case with clients, however, and perhaps my name had something to do with it.

“When they called for ‘Robbie’ and a woman turned up to quote for the job, I ran into a few people who were taken aback a little. But I think I quickly overcame those in-built prejudices when clients saw what I could do.

“As a woman, I think I actually had an advantage sometimes.

“I brought a new perspective to the process and, beyond just discussing bricks and mortar, showed clients the things they wanted to see in a language they understood. I was able to show them how a home could work for a family.”

Minor setbacks aside, Bower’s name for building quality homes started to get around and she established a strong client base.

By the early 1980s, as demand dictated, the nature of her business evolved into the company it is today.

Far from making minor changes to home interiors, Bower was in charge of a company that was building houses from the ground up.

In those early days, she was hands-on in every single facet of the work all the time – the footings, steel uprights, hanging doors, painting them, painting walls and roofs, the works.

The work achieved immediate acclaim, both from clients and industry.

Bower Construction and Design quickly became an award-winning company that earned the trust of the state’s leading architects and allowed her to develop a strong working relationship with the likes of Rob Williams (now of Williams, Burton, Leopardi).

Since 2000 the company has completed more than $100m in projects and won four major excellence awards with the Master Builders Association of South Australia.

Bower, however, knew she was successful when she could fully-fund her growing family without having to take a second job.

One of Bower’s high end developments, this one in College Park. Picture: Kate Dyer.

STILL ON THE GROUND

Bower has scaled back her duties over the years – she no longer deals with schematic plans and working drawings – but has never left the work site altogether.

She has always worked with her own tradies, a practice that – albeit scaled down – continues to this day.

And more than 40 years after the company became a new home builder, Bower is still answering phone calls and directing tradies on the site.

Sons Piers and Josh are co-directors but she’s still very active and can be found on various worksites most mornings.

“I’ve developed real relationships with everyone from the trades and subbies to the architects,” she says with pride.

“It’s my extended family. Some of these contractors have been with me for decades and many are the children of those who started out with me.

“It’s multi-generational and it gives me great pride watching these people and their businesses grow. I’ve had people work with me for years, for generations now.

“One of my carpenters, Greg, was something like 18 or 19 when he came along with his father and he’s now middle aged. Now his brother and son work with me. So that’s three generations in that case alone.

“One of our main plasterers has told me he’ll only work for us and one other builder because he gets enough work from us and trusts us.

“Then there’s the gyprocker, whose father worked for me. It’s a very familiar story and that loyalty, which goes both ways, works for me. I’m proud of the fact that I could develop strong, lasting relationships with the people on the work site.

“Of course, the greatest pride is in watching my three sons continue the business. I can watch Piers, Josh and Jay and know the business is in great hands going forward.”

She also helps price the job when the tender comes in from the architect after the plans have gone through council.

“We price up every single doorknob, every bit of steel and concrete,” she says.

“Once we win the job, the architect and I work it through with the client, who always has huge expectations. We’re a high-end builder so they expect every detail to be meticulously attended to. And so they should.”

Daughter-in-law Annabel, who is married to Josh, is following in Bower’s footsteps as a builder, obtaining her contractor’s licence and hoping to gain a full Master Builder’s supervisor’s licence.

“It would be quite a remarkable achievement to have two female master builders in the one family,” Bower says.

Bower has seen many changes in the building and design landscape in her 50-odd years on the job.

Robbie Bower is still answering phone calls and directing tradies on the site. Picture: Matt Loxton

The appeal then remains the appeal now. At the start, every job meant the client dealt directly with Robbie Bower; now the client or homeowner is still always dealing directly with a Bower – when a client calls, they get Robbie, Josh, Piers, Jay or Annabel.

The expectation of clients has increased as they learn more about what can be made available – either through watching the proliferation of TV shows on real estate, architecture and renovation, researching on the internet or just watching the property market.

Nothing surprises Bower, though, and there’s no job that can’t be achieved as an increasing number of clients buy property, knock over an old house and want their dream house built on the site.

“It used to be that you’d buy an old house and fix it up for a bargain,” she explains.

“But costs have increased so much that we have a lot of clients tearing down the house and coming to us for a new build.

“Renovations are costing more now than the end market value in some cases. A renovation can also mean limitations in some cases, while project builders are limited by what they can do for the budget, and that’s where we come in.”

Bower Construction and Design is not the only show in town, but it’s placed in the top tier of Adelaide builders doing high-end developments, along with the likes of Urban Habitats and Outset Design.

Bower’s high-end work on a Medindie home. Picture: supplied

The business created by the tireless work of a mother raising three boys while literally building a career one nail at a time is thriving as she hands most of the heavy lifting to those three sons and a daughter-in-law.

In the past year alone, the company has completed eight high-end homes or renovations – ranging from $500,000 to $2m – in some of Adelaide’s most exclusive suburbs.

Up to 20 years after most people have retired – particularly in her gruelling industry – Bower knows she can work at a slightly slower pace as the second generation of Bower builders shore up the future.

She wouldn’t have it any other way.