Hardscaping in New Gloucester, Maine.

A patio in New Gloucester is often the first piece of finished outdoor space on a house that went up in the last few decades. Census estimates put the town's median home at 1991, with roughly 710 of its 2,256 housing units built since 2000, and about 83% of occupied homes are lived in by their owners. That usually means a raw back door, a walk from a gravel driveway and a yard that was graded once and never really finished.

We build paver and flagstone patios, walkways, granite steps, fire pits, outdoor fireplaces and stone veneer. In this town the design questions come less from style than from ground and zoning: what the subsoil is, whether the lot sits over the aquifer, and how close it is to Sabbathday Lake or the Royal River.

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Impervious limits over the aquifer

New Gloucester's 2026 Zoning Ordinance includes a Groundwater Protection Overlay District drawn from a Robert C. Gerber hydrogeology study of the town's aquifer and recharge areas. Inside that overlay, impervious surface is capped at 10% of the lot unless site plan review allows up to 30%, and the Code Enforcement Officer has to make a positive finding before a building permit is issued.

Mortared stone and sealed pavers count against that kind of limit in a way a gravel path does not, so on overlay lots the patio footprint is worth measuring against the house, garage and driveway before the layout is final. The same district bars de-icing chemicals except sand with no more than 10% salt, which argues for a stone that tolerates sand on its surface through winter.

Silty clay in the valleys, sand on the terraces

NRCS soil survey mapping for the town mixes very different ground. Lamoine and Scantic silt loams, formed in glaciomarine silt and clay, are somewhat poorly to poorly drained and stay wet into spring. Hinckley and Windsor loamy sands on outwash terraces and eskers drain excessively, and Lyman-Abram complexes put bedrock within about 20 inches of the surface.

On the clays, a paver base needs deeper excavation, compacted crushed stone and a pitch that moves meltwater away, or frost will lift the edges. On the sands the base is easier, but loose fill has to be compacted in lifts. On ledge, steps and fire pits are sited around rock rather than on top of a thin skim of soil.

Near the lake and the river

The Limited Residential Shoreland District covers land within 250 feet of any great pond or river, and along the westerly side of Sabbathday Lake it reaches 500 feet. Close to the water, clearing is limited and grading is barred on slopes over 25% within 130 feet of a pond, river, stream or wetland. A patio on a shoreland lot is planned with the code office first, then laid out where the rules already allow disturbance.

Patios · Pavers · Fireplaces · Stone

How we handle hardscaping

From paver and flagstone outdoor patios to cobblestone entries, granite steps, outdoor fireplaces and fire pits, boulder installs, bluestone, natural rock work and stone veneer on house exteriors, we design and build hardscapes that hold their lines through Maine freeze and thaw. Every base is excavated, compacted and pitched for drainage before a single stone is set.

See the full hardscaping service page or everything we do in New Gloucester, Maine.

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Tell us about your property and we will walk it with you — free estimates, straight answers, stonework guaranteed to hold its lines.

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Mon–Sat 7:00am – 5:00pm · Based in Cumberland, Maine