He had decided to turn his love for animals from a hobby into a career and purchased of land to construct a wildlife refuge. As a builder, Irwin personally turned his hand to building and designing the Beerwah Reptile Park. Irwin dedicated so much time to constructing the Reptile Park and the enclosures that, for the first years in their new life of exhibiting native fauna, the Irwins lived in an old RV caravan. Irwin would build a shed, and then the Irwin house, which the Irwin family and Bob Irwin lived in until Bob gave the wildlife park to his son Steve.