Almost a quarter of Alton is water and close to half the houses are seasonal. So most of the clearing we do here is on a lake lot, inside the 250-foot Shoreland zone, on a parcel the town measures by its usable upland and not by the deed. We clear to that math — trees, stumps, brush out — and leave you a lot you can actually build on.
Alton owns more of Winnipesaukee than any other town — 19.3 square miles of water, nearly a quarter of its area — and the Lakeshore Residential zone that wraps it is where the clearing calls come from. The zoning math matters before a saw starts. A lakeshore lot needs 30,000 square feet, but the town doesn’t count steep slopes or wetlands toward that number, and anything created since 2007 has to be three-quarters contiguous upland at 25 percent grade or gentler. We’ve walked two-acre lots on the west shore that are, by the ordinance, a good deal smaller than the deed says.
Then the state rules layer on top. Alton rescinded its own shoreland overlay in March 2024, so the Shoreland Water Quality Protection Act is the whole rulebook within 250 feet of the bay, Halfmoon, Sunset, or Hills Pond. The first 50 feet back from the water is a tree-point grid — you keep a scored number of trees in every 50-by-50 segment and cut the rest. From 50 to 150 feet, at least a quarter of the ground has to stay in its natural state. That’s a view cut, not a clear cut, and it takes a tape and a can of paint before it takes a machine.
Up off the water it’s different work. The Rural zone runs to two-acre lots on the back roads toward Gilmanton and New Durham — old pasture gone to pine and popple, a stone wall through the middle of it. That’s where we get to open up real acreage: house site, septic field, a paddock, sometimes a field somebody wants back. Softer ground, fewer rules, more stumps.
One local oddity. Inside the town’s aquifer protection overlay, brush and stumps are the one solid waste you’re allowed to bury on site. We still don’t. Buried stumps rot, the ground drops, and ten years later there’s a hole in the lawn where the swing set was.
Buying a wooded Alton lake lot to build on? Ask for the tree-point flagging before you close. Ten minutes with a tape tells you whether the view you’re paying for is legal to open up.
We start with flagging, not felling. On a waterfront lot that means measuring the 50- and 150-foot lines back from the high-water mark, gridding the buffer, scoring the trees, and painting what stays. You get a sketch of it. If it’s a Shoreland permit job we get that filed with the state before the machines come — review takes weeks, not days, and the one thing worse than waiting is stopping halfway through.
Then the cut. Trees down, logs decked at the road for the buyer or the firewood pile, tops chipped where the chips can stay and hauled where they can’t. Stumps come out with the excavator and go on the truck. Topsoil gets stripped and piled by itself so it goes back on top when we’re done instead of getting mixed into the fill and lost. On the steeper lots along Route 11 under Mount Major the silt fence goes in before the first stump moves — partly because the town’s stormwater ordinance kicks in at 15 percent grade, mostly because it’s the right thing to do above a lake.
We finish with a rough grade that drains. Not a lawn — a lot. The next person, whether that’s a foundation crew or a septic designer, can walk it and see what they’ve got.
Full clearing in Alton runs $3,000–$8,000 per acre for wooded ground — lakeshore lots land toward the top because of the buffer work and the hauling, Rural-zone pasture lots toward the bottom. Light brush and sapling work is less. We walk it first and give you one number.
Within 250 feet of the water the state Shoreland Act governs, since Alton dropped its own overlay in 2024. The first 50 feet keeps a scored set of trees in each 50-by-50-foot grid square; from 50 to 150 feet at least a quarter of the ground stays unaltered. Past 150 feet you’re on the town’s regular rules. We measure and flag it before quoting.
No. In the Lakeshore Residential zone the minimum excludes steep slopes, wetlands, and roadway. Lots created after March 2007 also need 75 percent of that minimum in contiguous upland no steeper than 25 percent. If you’re clearing to build, we’ll show you where the usable ground actually is — sometimes it isn’t where the view is.
Brush can be chipped and spread on the back of a Rural-zone parcel if you want it. Stumps we haul. Alton’s aquifer overlay technically allows burying brush and stumps on site, but buried wood settles and leaves holes, and near the lake it’s a phosphorus source as it rots. Not worth it.
Rattlesnake and the other Alton islands are barge jobs — the machine goes over on a barge and the debris comes back the same way, so island clearing prices higher and the schedule follows the barge, not us. Island lots also need 150 feet of shoreline frontage under the town ordinance, and the same Shoreland buffer rules apply.
Late summer into fall for lakeshore lots — the ground is dry, any buffer plantings the state wants can go in, and you’re ready for a spring foundation. Frozen ground in winter works fine for back-lot work off Route 140. April we stay off waterfront lots entirely; the ground is soup and the ruts run straight to the lake.
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.
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