Our story · Founders, structure, credentials

Built differently, on purpose.

Varloch Group is a vertically integrated residential construction studio in Sydney, NSW. Founded in 2020 by Nick Varley and Jan Lochtenberg, we run construction, architecture and plumbing in-house, and we cap concurrent jobs at ten so every project keeps the senior attention of the people who priced it.

2020 founded3 in-house tradesSydney · NSWConstruction · Architecture · Plumbing

Beginning · 2020

Two people, a football pitch, and a shared frustration.

Nick Varley and Jan Lochtenberg met playing football. They came from different worlds — Nick had moved from yacht-mastering into licensed building, Jan from stockbroking into operations and accounts — but they shared the same view of the construction industry: that the standard residential client was being shortchanged by builders who managed projects loosely, hid information, and used subcontractor chains as an excuse for missed details. They started Varloch in 2020 with the intention of building differently.

Structure

One trade roof, not five sub-contracts.

Most residential builders coordinate trades. Varloch employs them. Construction, plumbing and architecture are run as in-house divisions. Electrical, maintenance and carpentry are next on the same trajectory. The reason isn’t ideology — it’s that the most expensive errors on a complex residential build happen at the seams between trades, and seams shrink when everyone reports to the same site manager and operates under the same systems.

Today

Technically difficult, residentially scaled.

Varloch works on the kinds of projects most volume builders pass on — basement excavation, tight-access sites, sloping coastal blocks, heritage overlays, integrated architect-builder briefs. We run up to 10 concurrent projects with a $6m HBCF open-job ceiling. We are not the cheapest. We are not trying to be. We are trying to be the team an architect calls when the project is hard.

The founders

Nick & Jan.

Founder · Head Builder

Nick Varley

Licensed builder and Level 2 Building Practitioner with fifteen-plus years on the tools. Nick leads construction across every Varloch site — the trades report to him, and so does the program. Before building, he held a yacht master’s ticket; the discipline of running an offshore vessel with a small crew translates well to running a residential site with a tight one.

Founder · Group Strategy

Jan Lochtenberg

Background in stockbroking and operations. Jan runs accounts, contracts, reporting and the systems that hold the trade group together. The transparency layer Varloch clients see — daily logs, time clocks, fortnightly claims against real cost codes — is mostly his work.

What we protect

Four operating principles.

Anything we do — across construction, architecture, plumbing, the trades to come — these come first.

Buildability before cost.

If a drawing won’t build cleanly, no amount of value-engineering fixes it. We pressure-test plans before contract — not after.

Transparency as a default.

Every project produces a daily log, time-clocked labour, fortnightly claims tied to a real cost-code structure, and an open project management tool the client can see into.

Director on site.

Nick is on every job site, every week. The person you signed with is the person who answers when you call.

Long-term ownership.

We hand over a Home Owner Manual specific to your build. The relationship doesn’t end at PC — and it shouldn’t.

Licences · Insurances · Recognition

The paperwork, on the record.

We carry the licences and cover required to operate at this level — and the contract works and HBCF policies that protect every project we sign. Certificates available on request.

NSW Builder Licence

373007C

Level 2 Building Practitioner

BUP0004294

Plumbing Contractor Licence

479776C

Public Liability

Chase Underwriting

HBCF — New Dwelling cover

$3,000,000

Open job limit

$6m / 10 concurrent

Recognition

2025 Business of the Year — finalist

The team · 10 on the books

Who’s on site.

The trades report to the directors. The directors report to the site. Photos coming as we work through them.

Nicholas Varley

Director · Project Manager

Jan Lochtenberg

Director · Foreman

Andre Szukilojc

Lead Foreman

Joshua Murphy

Leading Hand

Jose David

Carpenter

Thomas Ward

Carpenter

Nicholas Tressos

Apprentice

Andy Alexander

Apprentice

Almariz Pontinela

Office Manager

Regina Lleno

Sales Manager

Working on something hard?

If your project has structural complexity, a difficult site, a heritage overlay, or an architect with strong intent to protect — we’d like to hear about it.

Open a conversation →