Boathouses & Docks
A boathouse is the hardest ordinary building in Ontario: it stands in moving water, carries living space overhead, and answers to more regulators than most houses.
Everything above the waterline depends on what is below it. Crib placement, steel, and framing have to be planned for ice push, spring water levels, and the lakebed they actually sit on, because the deck line a boathouse shows the lake in year ten is decided by that work in year one.
The approvals are their own trade. Depending on the lake and the township, a boathouse or dock can involve the municipal building department, the conservation authority, MNRF work permits for larger cribs, and federal fisheries and navigation rules. We scope the approval path before the design is finished, so the drawings ask for something the lake and the township will actually allow. The permits page covers how that works.
Three finished two-storey boathouses anchor our portfolio: a traditional build with a red shingle roof and cupola, a green-and-white classic with lattice railings, and a contemporary glass boathouse under stacked flat roofs. Different owners, different architecture, the same water underneath.
What this covers
- Two-storey boathouses with living space above
- Single-storey boathouses and boat garages
- New docks and dock rebuilds
- Crib, steel, and floating dock structures
- Shoreline stairs, landings, and decks
- Approvals scoped with the design
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