[1][2][3] Stapleton carried out and contributed to heritage projects throughout Australia, including the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf, Walsh Bay Redevelopment, the Sydney GPO and Officials’ houses at Port Arthur, Tasmania.
Stapleton's 2013 renovation of the childhood home of cricketeer Don Bradman won a New South Wales National Trust heritage award.
In the early 1980s, with his partner, Maisy Stapleton, he published a series of articles in the Sydney Morning Herald on building restoration and Australian house styles.
[7] By the late 1980s and early 1990s Stapleton had joined a number of institutional and government heritage committees; he was president of Australia ICOMOS from 1992 to 1994, and worked on the organization's Burra Charter, which focused on the continuing use of historic places.
[9] Stapleton designed the restoration of the old buildings of the Sydney GPO, which were strengthened for earthquake and converted to hotel, function and retail uses, whilst maintaining the historic content and providing a new post office on George Street.