University Place is a short 7-mile hop, roughly 15 minutes from our Lakewood yard, and it brings a fencing puzzle that most inland suburbs never face: the view. Many lots here sit on the bluffs above Chambers Bay and Day Island, where a homeowner wants privacy from the neighbors but refuses to wall off the Puget Sound outlook they bought the house for. The rest of the city runs through tidy 1950s–70s ranch subdivisions with fences now reaching the end of the line. Balancing screening against sightlines is the local art, and it is one we have practiced here since 2017. We are fully insured and bonded.
View lots above Chambers Bay and ranch subdivisions
On the bluff lots the design question is always the same: how do you gain privacy on the sides and street without dropping a curtain across the water view? The answer usually means a solid privacy run where it screens a neighbor and a lower or open-style section, like aluminum, where the sightline to the Sound matters. Grade complicates it, because these view properties slope toward the bay and a fence line has to be stepped or raked to stay level across the drop.
In the ranch subdivisions the story is age. Homes from the 1950s through the 1970s came with fences that have now weathered decades of the local climate, close to 44 inches of rain a year falling mostly October through April, and their cedar is rotting at the posts and greying with moss. Replacing those runs is steady work, and on a sloped lot a straight swap is rarely as simple as pulling old panels, since the ground and the old post holes both need attention before new material goes in.

Fences we build most in University Place
View preservation and aging-fence replacement define the local demand. These are the jobs we take on most around University Place.
- Wood privacy fence for the side and street lines where screening a neighbor matters most
- Aluminum fence where an open metal line keeps the Puget Sound view clear
- Fence post repair and replacement for ranch-era runs failing at the base
- Gates matched to sloped driveways and side yards on the bluff lots
The mixed-material approach asks more of the design than a single-style fence ever does, and that is where the planning pays off. A seam where a solid wood run meets an open aluminum section has to look deliberate rather than accidental, so we align post spacing, cap heights and color across the transition. Done well, a visitor reads it as one considered fence rather than two materials stitched together because the budget ran out.
Slope ties the whole design together. On a bluff lot the same run can be chest-high at one end and well overhead at the other if it simply follows the dropping grade, so we step the panels in measured increments to hold a level top line while the ground falls toward the water.
How a University Place visit works
A view lot deserves a design conversation, not just a measurement, so we build that into the visit. Here is the path each job takes.
- Call (614) 543-4232 and tell us whether your lot has a water view you want to protect.
- We walk the property, note the sightlines, and mark where privacy panels help and where an open line should stay.
- We arrange the state-required 811 locate, which allows the two business days the law sets before a shovel touches the ground.
- We quote a mixed design if that is the right call, pairing solid and open sections for your lot.
- Our crew installs to grade, stepping the line so it stays true down the slope.
Protecting the view across University Place
Since 2017 we have fenced bluff lots above Chambers Bay and ranch yards deeper in the city, and the throughline is judgment about where a fence should screen and where it should disappear. We design the line so you keep the privacy you need and the Sound view you paid for, and we set every post plumb on ground that is anything but level.
Replacing an older run here is rarely a straight swap, and we price it honestly. Decades-old posts often pull out with the concrete still clinging, the old holes sit in the wrong spots for a modern panel layout, and the grade may have shifted since the first fence went in. We reset the line properly rather than forcing new boards onto tired bones, which is why a University Place replacement from us outlasts the one it replaced. Keeping that Sound view open is the whole point, and we never lose sight of it on a view lot.

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