Custom Entry, Pedestrian & Garden Gates

An entry gate is one of the most-touched surfaces of a home. Family members and visitors lay a hand on the pull, the latch, the rail every single day. We design every entry gate at hand-and-eye level — pull height, latch ergonomics, finish hand-feel — with hardware that feels right when you reach for it and a finish that ages gracefully against the stone, stucco, or plaster around it.

Proportions are scaled to the doorway and to the human, not enlarged from a driveway design. The result is a gate that feels custom the first time you touch it and still feels right ten years later.

Most entry gates we build are matched to an existing driveway gate, front door, or adjoining fence section. We pull stain samples, replicate hardware metals (a brushed-nickel front door wants brushed-nickel gate hardware — not chrome), copy joinery details like raised panels or arched tops, and finish with the same penetrating-oil system used on the home's other exterior wood.

The goal is for the entry gate to read as designed with the house, not added later. We routinely take a drawer-front from a built-in or a photo of a front door and color-match it in the workshop.

Yale, August, Schlage Encode, and Kwikset smart locks integrate cleanly into our hardwood frames. Wiring is hidden, battery packs are mortised flush, and the keypad faces don't look like a commercial side-yard install.

For higher-security applications we install full keypad-and-strike combinations with smartphone management, one-time codes for couriers, and audit logs. Every smart-lock install includes a backup mechanical key and a manual thumb-turn so the gate is never reliant on power or batteries alone.

California Building Code Section 3109 requires very specific hardware on any gate that's part of a pool enclosure: self-closing hinges, a self-latching mechanism mounted at least 60 inches above grade, no openings within 18 inches of the latch larger than ½ inch, and an outward swing.

We build pool-enclosure entry gates to that spec by default, with stainless self-closing hinges, code-compliant latch hardware, and the right opening direction.