On the Water Side
- Big Sandy Access
- Lakeshore Road
- S. Shady Shores Road
- N. Shady Shores Road
- Parkside Lane
- E. 6th Street
- Shady Lane
- Fritz Lane
Shady Shores, TX · One of the Lake Cities
Shoreline reinforcement in Shady Shores.
Water on three of four sides, a soft Woodbine bank, and a town that publishes the Corps rules on its own website. Shoretech is currently the only contractor permitted to build shoreline reinforcement on Lake Lewisville.
Read This First
In Shady Shores, the federal rules come before the design.
Substantial Corps fee land and flowage easement lies inside these town limits — more than in most places on the lake — and the town restates the rules on its own site because residents run into them constantly. Motorized vehicles are prohibited on Corps property within the town. On easement ground an owner may not place buildings, ramps, roads, channels, ditches or dams, or disturb the ground, without the District Engineer's approval; fences, vegetation management and leasing are allowed so long as the original contours are unchanged.
None of that stops a wall from being built. It does mean the sequence is survey first, written request second, design third — and that a contractor who has already had designs reviewed by this office is worth more here than anywhere else on the lake. Requests go to the Natural Resource Manager, Trinity Regional Project Office, 1801 N. Mill St, Lewisville, 469-645-9100.
1
Survey the line
Fee title below 522 feet msl plus a band above it, perpetual flowage easement to 537, brass-capped concrete monuments on the ground. Until that line is drawn on your plat, everything else is guesswork.
2
Put the request in writing
Ground disturbance on easement land is a written request to the Lake Office, not a phone call. Shoretech builds to designs that office reviews — the practice that produced the current authorization.
3
Design to the soil, then to the water
Embedment, tiebacks, drainage and backfill sized for a bank that slumps and for a pool that moves four to eight feet in a normal year. Not for the day of the site visit.
Where You Are
The head of the lake, on the old Lake Dallas basin.
Wedged between I-35E and open water, with Denton north, Corinth west and Lake Dallas across a shallow inlet to the south.
Shady Shores holds the northwest and west shore at the head of Lake Lewisville, on what was the original 1927 Lake Dallas basin — drowned when the Garza dam was breached in 1957 and the enlarged reservoir filled. The town's own description is that the lake borders it on three of its four sides. Its east-facing bank looks across the widest part of the upper basin toward Oak Point; its south-facing bank looks straight down the long axis of the reservoir, which is the direction the prevailing south-southeast wind arrives from and the direction the damaging blows above 20 mph come from. That is a lot of open water for a town of under three thousand people.
The frontage is old and idiosyncratic rather than master-planned. A Dallas contractor built a fishing camp of about ten wood-shingle cabins on this north shore in the mid-1920s; many of those camps became permanent houses in the 1930s and some still stand. The Shady Shores subdivision platted in 1932 gave the town its name, and it incorporated in 1960 to avoid annexation by Denton. Today it is strictly residential — no stoplight, no big-box, no waterfront office — with mature-tree lots, heavy on one-off custom and rebuilt homes, plus the very unusual Hidden Valley Airpark and a small amount of new construction at Lakeshore Bluffs. Plat names like Camp Fisher and the Shahan Addition still show up in title work.
Relief along the south and southeast frontage is genuinely low — low enough that the lake regularly runs over S. Shady Shores Road. That is the single most useful thing to understand about building here: the water does not just lap at the bank in Shady Shores, it periodically arrives on the road. Buttonbush occupies a narrow band within about half a metre of conservation pool, which is a handy field marker for where the working zone really begins.
Around Town
Streets, landings and the places work gets staged from.
About three square miles, no commercial waterfront, and one free public ramp with tight parking. Access is a real design input here, not an afterthought.
Neighborhoods & Land-Side Work
- Hidden Valley Airpark
- Lakeshore Bluffs
- Shahan Addition
- Camp Fisher
- W. Shady Shores Road
- Dobbs Road
- Retaining walls
- Slope & erosion control
Big Sandy off Lakeshore Road is the Corps-operated free ramp — two concrete lanes, no fee, parking for around two dozen — but parking on the grass and along Lakeshore Road is prohibited, so it is a launch point rather than a laydown yard. Hidden Valley Airpark puts a 2,600-foot runway and its common area a few hundred yards from the bank, which is its own set of access considerations. Town Hall is at 101 S Shady Shores Road, 940-498-0044.
Talk access through with DaveWhat Shoretech Offers Here
Three kinds of work, and one that is off the table.
Bulkheads, walls above the federal line, and repairs inside an existing permit. Not new boathouses or docks — the Corps is not permitting those at Lewisville, for anyone.
Steel & Heavy Timber Bulkheads
Reinforcement at the water line on a bank that undercuts and slumps. Built to a design the Corps reviews — currently the only route to a new bulkhead on this lake.
Retaining Walls & Erosion Control
Slope stabilization on the private ground above the Corps boundary, where no federal permit is involved. Often the right answer on wooded lots losing ground uphill of the water.
Boathouse Repair & Rebuild
Substructure, decking, roof, lift and electrical on a structure that already carries a shoreline use permit, kept where it stands and within what the Lake Office will approve.
Can I Build On My Lake?
The plain-English version of who controls your waterfront and what that means before you spend money on a design.
522 ft
Conservation pool, msl — Corps fee title below this and a band above it
537 ft
Top of the perpetual flowage easement across much of this town
4–8 ft
Normal annual fluctuation per Texas Parks & Wildlife
$15.4M
Denton County project to raise flood-prone S. Shady Shores Road
Straight Answers
Shady Shores shoreline FAQ.
What does the flowage easement actually let me do on my Shady Shores lot?
The Town of Shady Shores publishes the Corps rules on its own site, and they are the hinge for any work here. On flowage-easement ground an owner may not place buildings, ramps, roads, channels, ditches or dams, and may not disturb the ground, without the approval of the District Engineer. Fences, vegetation management and leasing are allowed provided the original contours are unchanged. Motorized vehicles are prohibited on Corps property inside the town limits. In practice this means almost anything structural at the water needs a written request before a shovel moves.
Why does a Woodbine bank behave differently from the east shore?
Shady Shores sits on the Woodbine side of the lake — a thin blanket of Quaternary terrace alluvium of sand, gravel and clay over loosely cemented ferruginous sands and laminated sandy clays. That material undercuts and slumps rather than holding a clean vertical face, which is why a bank here can look intact from the yard and be hollow underneath. It matters for wall design: embedment depth, tieback spacing and above all drainage behind the wall get set by what the soil does when it is saturated, not by how the bank looks on a dry day.
Can Shoretech build me a bulkhead in Shady Shores?
A bulkhead is possible on Lake Lewisville, and Shoretech is currently the only contractor the Corps of Engineers permits to build shoreline reinforcement here. The Corps had stopped permitting them on this lake after too many failed walls; rather than reopening it to everyone they authorized one contractor working to a design they had reviewed, and that authorization runs through the end of December 2027. It is a permission to build, not a guarantee for a given lot — your shoreline still has to qualify.
Can I add a new dock or boathouse on my Shady Shores waterfront?
No. The Corps is not allowing construction of new boat houses or docks at Lewisville Lake. The only route to one is buying a property that already carries a permitted structure — a five-year shoreline use permit, currently $35, not transferable, and the structure cannot be relocated. Shoretech repairs and rebuilds already-permitted structures where they stand, and will tell you on the first call if what you want cannot be permitted.
How does the flooding on S. Shady Shores Road affect a project schedule?
It is worth planning around. S. Shady Shores Road between Parkside Lane and Montserrat Road has closed repeatedly when the lake is high and the Corps is holding back releases to protect communities downstream, which can sever the direct route toward Lake Dallas. Denton County has a roughly $15.4 million project to raise the road, with bridge repair in design and construction estimated to begin in Fall 2025. Staging is tight for other reasons too — parking on the grass and along Lakeshore Road at Big Sandy is prohibited. Access gets worked out before a date goes in the calendar. Call 936-662-5100.
Where does the Corps boundary fall on a Shady Shores lot?
It has to be surveyed, not assumed. The Corps holds fee title below 522 feet msl plus a band above it, with a perpetual flowage easement to 537 feet, marked on the ground by concrete monuments with brass caps. Substantial fee land and flowage easement lies inside the Shady Shores town limits, and on this low southern frontage the line can sit surprisingly far up the yard. Requests go in writing to the Natural Resource Manager, Trinity Regional Project Office, 1801 N. Mill St, Lewisville, 469-645-9100.
Nearby
The rest of the Lake Cities.
Before The Bank Decides For You
Losing ground on the Shady Shores side?
A soft bank that undercuts does not fail politely — it looks fine until a section of yard is gone. If your frontage is on the east or south face of town, the sensible order is a survey, a conversation, then a design. The bulkhead authorization on this lake runs through December 2027 and permitting here has never been quick.