Outdoor Living in Ennis, TX
Outdoor living is the covered patio, pool, kitchen, stone and lighting that make a backyard part of the home. Longhorn designs and builds them together for Ennis homeowners in Ellis County, with one family-owned team.
- 40+Years in Business
- 15,000+Projects Completed
- 1984Family-Owned Since
- 90DFW Cities Served
Before you build in Ennis
Ennis was founded in 1872 as a Houston & Texas Central Railroad town, so the older neighborhoods around downtown sit on small, tightly platted railroad-era lots while the subdivisions along I-45 and SH 34 are newer and more open. The surrounding farmland is deep Blackland cotton-and-corn ground, and the city is the state-designated Official Bluebonnet Trail of Texas, whose routes follow that prairie clay.
That ground decides how a slab, a pool shell or a footing has to be built here. Here is what it does to a patio.
We file the permit with the City of Ennis and follow it through review, so the schedule doesn’t stall on paperwork.
Longhorn has built across Ellis County and the wider Metroplex since 1984, and every project starts with a free design visit and a firm price.
Outdoor living we build in Ennis, TX
Homes and Yards in Ennis
Ennis is a historic railroad town whose Templeton-McCanless Historic District preserves homes from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Next to an older house with real character, materials and rooflines are chosen to suit the house. It is also worth confirming whether the lot sits in a local historic district before designing anything visible from the street.
Bardwell Lake lies less than a mile south of the city limits.
City of Ennis treats its own surface water drawn from Bardwell Lake.
The Houston and Texas Central Railway reached the area in 1871, and the first train ran through that year on its way from Corsicana to Dallas. Ennis incorporated in November 1873, held its first election in April 1874, and had 300 people and rising land values by 1874. It reached 3,000 by 1890, 6,600 by 1914, 7,069 in 1930, and 11,550 in 1970. Later counts were 16,045 in 2000, 18,513 in 2010, and 20,159 in 2020, so the newer subdivisions sit outside a core that was largely in place before World War I.
In 1891 the city built the first of three lakes for its water supply. Lake Bardwell was completed in 1965 for flood control, storage, and recreation. Railroad tracks between Ennis and Kaufman were abandoned in 1942 after frequent washouts in the Trinity River bottoms.
Local reference points include the Ennis Municipal Airport, completed in 1968 as the only airport in the county, and the Texas Motorplex, a racetrack founded in 1986 that seated 26,000. The Ennis Polka Festival, founded in 1967, is held every May, and the Bluebonnet Trails are the other major annual event.
What each outdoor project needs in Ennis, TX
What does a patio cover need in Ennis?
Blackland Prairie clay lifts and drops with the season, so a patio cover’s footings are the whole job. Posts set in shallow pads move with the top of the soil and take the roofline with them; footings taken below the active zone, tied to a slab that drains away from the house, do not. In Ennis the permit goes through the City of Ennis, and Longhorn files it and follows it through inspection. More on patio covers.
How is a pool built in Ennis?
Blackland Prairie clay swells through a wet spring and shrinks hard by August, and a pool shell is a rigid object sitting in ground that moves around it. Here that means the shell, the beam and the deck are engineered for that movement from the drawing stage, and the flatwork gets its control joints placed on purpose rather than wherever the pour ends. In Ennis the permit goes through the City of Ennis, and Longhorn files it and follows it through inspection. More on pools.
How is a pergola built to last in Ennis?
On Blackland Prairie clay a pergola’s posts are what decide whether it still stands square in five years. The clay moves most in the top few feet, so footings go deeper than the movement rather than resting in it, and the slab underneath gets its own drainage plan. More on pergolas.
How a Backyard Project Runs in Ennis
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A free design visit in Ennis
A designer comes out to the house, measures the space a backyard project has to fit, walks the access a crew would need, and talks through what you want it to do. You leave with a firm price. On Blackland Prairie ground, that is also when the grading, drainage and movement details get decided rather than improvised on site.
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Drawings, permit and HOA
We file the permit with the City of Ennis and follow it through review, so the schedule does not stall on paperwork. Where an HOA wants a submittal, we prepare the drawings it asks for.
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One crew, one schedule
The same team builds the whole backyard project in order, so the slab, the structure, the electrical and the finish work are not three different companies working around each other.
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Walkthrough and warranty
We walk the finished backyard project with you, settle the punch list and leave one warranty on the work, and we are still Ellis County-local if you need us later.
Ennis outdoor living questions
Almost always, for pools and for anything attached to the house, including patio covers, sunrooms and enclosures. Longhorn files the permit with the City of Ennis and handles the inspections, so the schedule does not stall on paperwork.
Ennis sits on Blackland Prairie ground in Ellis County. The ground decides how a slab, a pool shell or a footing has to be built, so we plan the drainage and the footings for it at the first visit rather than after something moves.
Where an HOA in Ennis asks for a submittal, we prepare the drawings and details it wants, alongside the city permit, so the approval runs in parallel with the design rather than after it.
Yes. Many homeowners start with one piece, such as a pool or a patio cover, and add the rest later. We plan the whole space up front so the gas, power, water and drainage for later phases are in place from the start.
Other cities we build in near Ennis
Outdoor living guides
Outdoor Flooring for a Frisco Backyard: Pick by Zone
One yard, five jobs for the ground: dining, cooking, swimming, play and the dog. Here is how to match a surface to each zone, and what Frisco’s clay, heat and city rules change.
Outdoor Kitchen Countertop Materials in Frisco, TX
Granite, porcelain, quartzite and quartz all behave differently in Frisco sun, freezes and clay. Here is a pick by exposure, a sealing test, and what the base under the stone needs.
HOA Approval for a Patio Cover in Texas: DFW Guide
The HOA and the city are two separate approvals, and the HOA usually comes first. Here is the packet a DFW committee wants, how long it takes, why it says no, and how to answer a denial.
Free design visits in Ennis
Tell us what you have in mind and we’ll come measure, talk options and give you a straight number. No obligation, no pressure.
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