Boathouses & Covered Slips
Entertainment-grade boathouses with open-gable cooling, lifts and lighting — permitted as limited-use structures, with the Louisiana-side 2,500-square-foot cap designed to where it applies.
Lakes We Serve · TX / LA
Boathouses, piers and seawalls on Toledo Bend Reservoir.
Sixty-five miles of drowned Sabine River timber country, jointly owned by two state agencies. Which one you deal with depends on which bank you are standing on — and a document called the leaseback decides whether you can build at all.
The Permitting Reality
Two authorities, one reservoir, and a strip of leased ground in between.
The mechanism that makes private shoreline work possible here is the leaseback — and almost nobody explains it before quoting a job.
Toledo Bend is jointly owned by the Sabine River Authority of Texas, Toledo Bend Division — 450 Spur 135, Burkeville, TX 75932, 409-565-2273 — and the Sabine River Authority, State of Louisiana, Toledo Bend Project, 15091 Texas Hwy., Many, LA 71449, 318-256-4112 or 800-259-5253. The two agencies jointly own the dam and the reservoir, and the bank your property fronts determines which office holds your file.
Between the project taking line and the 172-foot msl contour lies a strip of ground owned by the Sabine River Authority and leased back to the adjoining fee property owner. That leaseback is the whole ballgame: it is what gives an owner the right to reach the water and to build boathouses, piers, sea walls and similar structures in front of his property. Where it exists and is carried in the deed, permission is straightforward. Where it is not confirmed, nothing should be ordered.
SRA makes the first step easy, and says so: it is not necessary to come to headquarters in person to start. Call or email with your name, phone and property deed information, and shoreline staff will research the tract and schedule the site meeting. On this lake that call is the correct first move — earlier than the drawing, earlier than the material order.
Private Limited Use Permit
How a Toledo Bend job actually runs.
Residential work is authorized under a Private Limited Use Permit (PLUP); commercial work uses a Commercial Limited Use Permit (CLUP). Storage buildings, gazebos, boat launches and pools are also permittable with SRA consent and supervision. Habitable structures and sewage facilities are prohibited on leaseback property, and on the Louisiana side boathouses are capped at 2,500 square feet.
1
Application, fees and a signed sketch
The submission carries a sketch showing the structure's dimensions and its location on the frontage, signed by the applicant — not a napkin diagram, and not a rendering without dimensions.
2
The deed that carries leaseback rights
Ownership documentation showing the leaseback goes in with the application. This is the item that most often sends a project back to the title company, which is why it is chased first.
3
A required on-site meeting before construction
Shoreline staff meet you at the water before any work begins. Getting the design in front of that meeting rather than after it is the single biggest schedule saver on this lake.
4
Written permission, then a 24-month window
A written permission letter authorizes the work, and the permit window runs up to 24 months. Long enough for a considered build, short enough that a stalled job becomes a problem.
5
Final inspection and the permit plate
Notify SRA for final inspection when the structure is finished, and display the issued permit plate on it. A structure without its plate is a conversation nobody wants to have later.
Bottom, Bank and Level
What the water is standing on: a drowned pine forest.
East Texas and west Louisiana pine and hardwood uplands were flooded in the late 1960s, and the defining feature of this lake is what was left standing.
TPWD describes the habitat as aquatic vegetation, standing timber and flooded terrestrial vegetation. Hydrilla dominates the plants, with coontail and eelgrass established. The lower reservoir is clearer, with vegetation edges and creek channels; the upper third carries less vegetation but more timber and brush, and turns slightly turbid. TPWD publishes no bottom-composition figure for Toledo Bend at all, so what a pile finds is a site question rather than a lake-wide one. Stumps and submerged timber are the practical hazard for barge access and pile placement across much of the reservoir.
Normal pool is 172 feet above mean sea level, holding 4,477,000 acre-feet — controlled storage on a scale nothing else in the region matches. TPWD rates annual fluctuation at just 1 to 5 feet, modest for a lake this size, because Toledo Bend is enormous relative to its inflow and is operated for water supply and hydropower rather than flood control. The 92-megawatt powerhouse produces short-term changes, and local boat launches are commonly rated by lake elevation, which tells you how much usable ramp access moves in a dry year.
That 172-foot contour is more than a water-level number here. It is the lakeward edge of the SRA leaseback strip, and therefore the line the permit is written around. Published figures for the reservoir's size differ — TWDB and TPWD give 181,600 acres at the 172-foot pool while the Sabine River Authority of Texas states 185,000 — and the shoreline is commonly given as approximately 1,200 miles, with other sources running higher. The dam closed in October 1966; TPWD lists the reservoir as impounded in 1967, while TWDB lists dam completion as 1969, the year the power plant went into service.
Scope of Work
What Shoretech can build on Toledo Bend.
Permitted on the correct bank, sized to the leaseback, and built for timber-strewn bottom.
Piers & Boat Docks
Fixed and floating piers set clear of stumps and standing timber, with deck elevations referenced to the 172-foot pool the permit is written around.
Sea Walls & Bulkheads
Sea wall and bulkhead construction in galvanized steel, vinyl, FRP composite and heavy timber — explicitly among the structures a leaseback holder may build in front of the property.
Dredging & Boat Launches
Slip and access dredging plus private boat launches, which SRA permits with its consent and supervision alongside the main structure.
Around the Reservoir
Sixty-five miles, two states, and a very spread-out waterfront.
The largest man-made lake in the South, running from the dam near Burkeville up to Logansport — camps, cabins, retirement homes, fishing lodges and resorts rather than a Metroplex subdivision line.
Texas side
- Hemphill
- Milam
- Shelbyville
- Joaquin
- Patroon
- Fairmount
- Burkeville
- Six Mile Marina, Hemphill
- Holly Park Marina, Milam
- Fox's Lodge & Marina and Harbor Light Marina, Hemphill
- Sandals & Spurs Resort — launch, slips and fish-cleaning station
- Frontier Park, near Hemphill and Milam
- Toledo Bend Army Recreation Park, at the south end
Louisiana side
- Many
- Zwolle
- Converse
- Noble
- Logansport
- Stanley
- Florien
- Hornbeck
- Anacoco
- North Toledo Bend State Park
- South Toledo Bend State Park
Roughly 33 public access areas — parks, marinas and commercial facilities — exist on the Texas side alone, with boat launching at most. Because the shoreline is so long and so rural, the practical constraint on a job here is usually mobilization distance and barge access rather than permission. Toledo Bend spans Newton, Sabine, Shelby and Panola Counties in Texas and Sabine and DeSoto Parishes in Louisiana, and reaches about 110 feet deep with an average near 24.
Questions We Hear
Toledo Bend FAQ.
What is the leaseback, and why does it decide everything?
The strip between the project taking line and the 172-foot msl contour is owned by the Sabine River Authority and leased back to the adjoining fee property owner. That leaseback is what gives an owner the right to reach the water and to build boathouses, piers, sea walls and similar structures in front of his property. The first thing SRA shoreline staff do is research your tract and confirm the deed carries those rights — which is why a project starts with a phone call and a deed, not with a drawing.
Which authority do I apply to?
Whichever bank you are standing on. Texas side: Sabine River Authority of Texas, Toledo Bend Division, 450 Spur 135, Burkeville, TX 75932, 409-565-2273. Louisiana side: Sabine River Authority, State of Louisiana, Toledo Bend Project, 15091 Texas Hwy., Many, LA 71449, 318-256-4112 or 800-259-5253. The two authorities jointly own the dam and reservoir, and a contractor working both banks holds a relationship with both offices.
What does the permit process actually look like?
Residential work runs under a Private Limited Use Permit; commercial work uses a Commercial Limited Use Permit. Submit the application with fees and a signed sketch showing the structure's dimensions and location, provide the ownership deed carrying leaseback rights, hold the required on-site meeting with shoreline staff before any construction begins, receive a written permission letter to proceed, complete the work within a permit window of up to 24 months, notify SRA for final inspection when finished, and display the issued permit plate on the structure. Habitable structures and sewage facilities are prohibited on leaseback property.
Nearby Water
More water along the state line.
Start With a Conversation
Planning a project on Toledo Bend?
Tell Dave which bank you are on, what your deed says about the leaseback, and how the barge would reach your frontage. On a lake this size, access is half the design.