New gravel driveways built with a real base, and tired ones regraded, crowned, and drained — so a Ashland driveway survives mud season and the next big storm instead of washing down the hill.
Ashland works at two scales. In the village, lots are small and old — houses close together, short setbacks, sewer and water laterals of respectable age — so excavation means compact equipment, Dig Safe 811 marks studied carefully, and trench work done tight to structures without disturbing them. Out at Little Squam, it’s classic camp country: seasonal places on posts and piers converting to year-round, which brings full frost-depth foundations, water and power trenches, and Shoreland rules within 250 feet of the lake. The Squam River threading through town leaves sandy, workable soils on its terraces — pleasant digging, though low spots near the river want their drainage thought through and floodplain lines checked. Highway access is a genuine advantage; gravel and stone truck in cheap here. Fall remains our favorite Ashland season: dry ground, no posted roads, and camps empty for the winter work window.
Upgrading a Little Squam camp? Trench your utilities — water, power, and any future conduit — in one mobilization while the excavator is already on site for the foundation. Opening the same ground twice is the most common avoidable cost we see on camp conversions, and an empty spare conduit costs almost nothing to add.
A driveway that lasts is a structure: geotextile where soils are soft, a compacted bank-run gravel base, and a crushed-gravel or stone surface crowned so water runs off the sides instead of down the middle. Culverts go where water crosses, ditches where it runs alongside. Skip any of those and you buy the same driveway again every few years — that’s the washboard, potholed, washed-out driveway we get called to fix.
We build new driveways, rebuild failing ones, and do the annual regrade-and-crown that keeps a camp road drivable through mud season.
New gravel driveways typically run $15–$30 per linear foot built right (base + surface + crowning); regrading and topping an existing driveway costs a fraction of that. Culverts and ditching quoted per site. Flat quote after a quick look.
Built properly — compacted bank-run base, crushed gravel surface, crowned — figure $15 to $30 per linear foot for a standard 12-foot-wide driveway, more on steep or soft ground. A cheap spread-and-go driveway costs less up front and every year after.
Water is running down it instead of off it. The fix is shape and drainage: crown the surface, ditch the uphill side, and put a culvert where water crosses. Once water has somewhere to go, the gravel stays where you paid for it.
Yes — washboard and potholes are symptoms of a thin or uncrowned surface. We regrade to pull material back where it belongs, re-crown, and compact. If the base has failed we'll tell you honestly and price a rebuild of just the failed section.
Free site walks, test pits before quotes, flat pricing, and a crew that knows Lakes Region ground.
Tell us where the property is and what you’re trying to do. We’ll walk the site, talk it through, and give you a straight, flat quote.
