A two-storey boathouse on Lake Muskoka is regulated tightly and has to be planned permits-first. The owner wanted three slips for a runabout, a wakeboat, and a vintage Greavette, with a fully serviced guest suite above. That program is allowable on this lot, but only within a specific size envelope.
Lakeside CM started with the township and the Ministry of Natural Resources, not the design. The approvals confirmed the boathouse could be built on an expanded footprint relative to the legacy crib structure, contingent on a marine-engineering report and a vegetation-buffer plan. Once those were on file, we moved to design coordination.
Foundations are helical screw piles into the lake bottom. The piles were installed off a custom marine rig over four working weeks. Once decks were on, the upland trades took over. The base course of the boathouse is clad in natural Muskoka granite to read as continuous with the shoreline; the upper structure is Douglas fir timber framing with clear cedar siding and a cedar shake roof.
The second-storey guest suite is fully four-season, insulated, mechanically heated, with potable water from the cottage well and a holding tank. Permits for second-storey accommodation in a Muskoka boathouse are specific; we ran them as a separate application track from the boathouse shell.
The build ran nine months from pile installation to closeout. The owner moved family into the suite the first July long weekend it was ready.
Spec.
- 01Helical screw pile foundation
- 02Douglas fir timber frame
- 03Natural Muskoka granite base cladding
- 04Clear cedar siding
- 05Cedar shake roof
“// REPLACE, placeholder testimonial”
On site, on the lake.
Tell us about your build.
A 30-minute call to discuss scope, lot, timeline, and whether owner-side construction management is the right model for your project.