Outdoor Living in Keller, 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 Keller homeowners in Tarrant County, with one family-owned team.
- 40+Years in Business
- 15,000+Projects Completed
- 1984Family-Owned Since
- 90DFW Cities Served
Before you build in Keller
Keller lots tend to be generous and gently sloped, which suits a stepped design, with pool at one level, covered living at another, rather than flattening everything to one slab.
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 Keller and follow it through review, so the schedule doesn’t stall on paperwork. Locally that is the Building Services, Community Development. Keller buys its water wholesale from the City of Fort Worth, which draws on Tarrant Regional Water District reservoirs.
Longhorn has built across Tarrant County and the wider Metroplex since 1984, and every project starts with a free design visit and a firm price.
Homes and Yards in Keller
Keller is a mostly residential city whose population nearly doubled during the 1990s.
Yards from those decades are usually established, with grown trees, a fence line and an original patio that is often too small. Most projects become a retrofit, planned around what is worth keeping.
Keller sits in the Eastern Cross Timbers, historically thick with oak woods, with open prairie to the west. Where an older oak survives on a lot, it is an asset: its root zone is marked before any digging, and its shade goes into the layout.
City of Keller buys treated water from the City of Fort Worth.
Keller began as Athol, a settlement that moved toward the expected Texas and Pacific route in 1879; H. W. Wood gave forty acres for the townsite in July 1881, and the name Keller appeared in abstracts by 1882. Early settlers kept their homes in the timber and farmed the prairie, and because local lumber was unsuitable for building, many houses were built of wood hauled by wagon from Grapevine. The town counted 827 people in 1960 and 4,143 in 1980 before the jump to 13,683 in 1990, 27,345 in 2000 and 39,627 in 2010; the 2020 count was 45,776. In 1983 nearby subdivisions fought annexation.
Big Bear Creek rises about three miles west of Keller and runs some twenty miles southeast across low-rolling to flat ground before joining Little Bear Creek near DFW Airport. Its soils are deep to shallow sandy and clayey loams. The Eastern Cross Timbers that cover this part of Tarrant County carry deep loamy soil supporting blackjack and post oak.
Keller is one of the City of Fort Worth’s wholesale drinking water customers, listed alongside Southlake, Westlake, Roanoke, Haslet and Northlake.
What each outdoor project needs in Keller, TX
What does a patio cover need in Keller?
Eastern Cross Timbers loam is easier to dig than clay, but it sits on clay, so a post hole that looks clean at three feet can still be in moving ground at five. Footings are sized for what is under the sand, not what the auger came through first. In Keller the permit goes through the Building Services, Community Development, and Longhorn files it and follows it through inspection. More on patio covers.
How is a pergola built to last in Keller?
In the Eastern Cross Timbers the sand drains and the clay beneath it does not, so a pergola post can sit in a hole that holds water after a storm. The footing detail and the grade around each post are what keep the base of a wooden post dry. More on pergolas.
How is a pool built in Keller?
Eastern Cross Timbers ground is sandier loam over clay, which digs more kindly than the black prairie but drains onto a layer that does not. On a pool that shows up as water travelling under the deck, so the drainage and the backfill detail matter as much as the shell. In Keller the permit goes through the Building Services, Community Development, and Longhorn files it and follows it through inspection. More on pools.
Can a sunroom or screened enclosure be added in Keller?
A sunroom or screened enclosure in Keller is attached to the house, so it is permitted through the Building Services, Community Development and sits on footings designed for the ground under it. We match the roofline and the exterior to the house so it reads as part of it. More on sunrooms and patio enclosures.
How a Backyard Project Runs in Keller
- 1
A free design visit in Keller
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 Eastern Cross Timbers ground, that is also when the grading, drainage and movement details get decided rather than improvised on site.
- 2
Drawings, permit and HOA
We file the permit with the City of Keller (locally that is the Building Services, Community Development) and follow it through review, along with any HOA submittal.
- 3
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.
- 4
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 Tarrant County-local if you need us later.
Keller outdoor living questions
The Building Services, Community Development reviews residential projects in Keller. Pools and structures attached to the house, such as patio covers, sunrooms and enclosures, almost always need a permit. Longhorn files it and follows it through inspection.
Keller sits on Eastern Cross Timbers ground in Tarrant 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.
Keller buys its water wholesale from the City of Fort Worth, which draws on Tarrant Regional Water District reservoirs. Watering schedules can tighten in a drought, so we plan the planting and irrigation around the current rules and choose heat-tolerant plants that can establish on them.
Where an HOA in Keller 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 Keller
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 Keller
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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