Custom home builder in Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina.

A spring that pours out millions of gallons a day gave the city its name.

Boiling Spring Lakes was incorporated on April 7, 1961, on land a developer, Reeves Broadcasting Corporation, had bought the year before and divided into lots from a quarter acre to ten acres. The name comes from a spring. In 1961 the developers found a spring gushing in a wooded ravine and built a four-foot brick wall around it; the spring stopped, then broke out again about fifteen feet outside the wall. State geologists put its flow at about 43 million gallons a day, and it still boils today.

The lakes came next. The largest, the 275-acre Big Lake, is fed by five springs and Allen's Creek, runs two and a half miles and carries ten miles of shoreline, and the city counts more than fifty natural and man-made lakes inside its limits. The chain of lakes that gave the place its waterfront lots sits behind earthen dams.

The ground between the lakes is pine and pocosin. Before development, the tract held longleaf pine, Carolina bays, pocosins and limestone sinks, and much of that country survives around the city as the Boiling Spring Lakes Plant Conservation Preserve, a state preserve of more than 6,000 acres run by the NC Plant Conservation Program. State staff describe the preserve as shaped like a doughnut around the city, with the red-cockaded woodpeckers living mostly in the middle, in town. The 2020 Census counted 5,943 residents across the city's roughly 23 square miles.

• Lakefront lots on the dammed lakes
• Wooded interior lots in longleaf and pond pine, where every pine that comes down needs federal review first
• Lots at the edge of the preserve, backing onto state land that is managed with prescribed fire
• Lots fronting NC 87, which carry a deeper front setback than the rest of town
• Larger rural tracts of five acres or more in the R-6 district

Hurricane Florence broke the dams that held the lakes.

In September 2018, Hurricane Florence filled Big Lake past its brim and overtopped Sanford Dam. The breach and the erosion that followed destroyed the dam, and the failure ran upstream through the smaller dams above it until the lakes drained. The city owns four of those dams, North Lake, Pine Lake, Sanford and Upper Lake; a fifth, Middle Lake Dam, is privately owned. FEMA disaster assistance is helping pay to rebuild them, and the city's construction contract runs to May 18, 2027.

The rebuilding has come in pieces. In 2025 the rebuilt Pine Lake Dam was found to have design and elevation problems. In July 2026 the state's Dam Safety Program issued a Certificate of Final Approval for the Upper Lake (Allen Creek) dam, and the city closed the gate valve on July 21 so the lake behind it could refill. In August 2026 the city expected the corrected Pine Lake Dam, and Sanford Dam, to be finished in early 2027.

A standard Boiling Spring Lakes lot starts at 15,300 square feet.

The City of Boiling Spring Lakes governs building inside its limits through a Unified Development Ordinance, with zoning in Article 5. Its single-family districts, R-1 through R-5, carry the same dimensional standards in the Section 5.7 table: a 15,300-square-foot minimum lot, 90 feet of width, a 40-foot front setback, 10 feet at each side, 25 feet at the rear, and a 40-foot height limit. A lot fronting NC 87 takes a 75-foot front setback. The R-6 Rural Residential district asks for five acres, with 50-foot front and rear setbacks. Section 5.6.4 caps impervious surface (the house, porches, garage, drive and any accessory building) at 30 percent of the lot, unless a North Carolina professional engineer seals a solution the UDO Administrator approves.

The city issues its own building permits. Its Building Permits and Inspections office at City Hall, 9 East Boiling Spring Road, takes the application and inspects the work, and the Planning and Zoning Department administers the UDO. Since March 2026, Section 7-40 of the UDO has required a lot drainage plan with the building permit application for every new single-family or two-family house on a standalone lot, approved by the city's Stormwater Department; an engineer prepares it only where the city's Stormwater Engineer finds the site calls for one. The city code also asks every new house to carry gutters and downspouts that empty into a stone-filled pit (Code of Ordinances Section 4-79).

Two county offices sit alongside the city's. Brunswick County Utilities runs the public water and sewer lines in Boiling Spring Lakes, and sewer reaches only parts of the city, so many lots rely on a septic system. Brunswick County Environmental Health issues the septic improvement permit, the authorization to construct and the operation permit, and the city's new-house checklist lists those county permits among its requirements.

Jurisdiction

City of Boiling Spring Lakes, incorporated April 7, 1961; City Hall at 9 East Boiling Spring Road

Adopted code

City of Boiling Spring Lakes Unified Development Ordinance: zoning in Article 5, supplemental rules including ADUs in Article 6, tree protection in Article 7, flood damage prevention in Article 11

Permit authority

The city's Building Permits and Inspections office for building permits and inspections; Planning and Zoning for the UDO; the city's Stormwater Department for the lot drainage plan (UDO Sec. 7-40)

Single-family lot (R-1 to R-5)

15,300 sq ft minimum, 90 ft wide; setbacks 40 ft front (75 ft on NC 87), 10 ft side, 25 ft rear; 40 ft maximum height (UDO Sec. 5.7); impervious surface up to 30% of the lot (Sec. 5.6.4)

Water, sewer, septic

Brunswick County Utilities for public water and sewer; Brunswick County Environmental Health for septic permits

Flood rules

UDO Article 11: base flood elevation plus two feet of freeboard in a mapped Special Flood Hazard Area; the UDO Administrator serves as floodplain administrator

Ultimate design wind speed

150 mph across the city (2018 NC Residential Code, Table R301.2(4), note c)

Before a pine comes down here, the Fish and Wildlife Service has to review it.

The red-cockaded woodpecker nests in cavities it digs in living pines, and the longleaf pine forest it lives in makes up much of the landscape in Boiling Spring Lakes. The species was listed as endangered in 1970 and reclassified as threatened by a federal rule published in October 2024, and it remains protected under the Endangered Species Act. For a lot owner, that protection shows up at the first tree. The city requires its own permit to remove any tree larger than 7.9 inches in diameter at breast height, and removing any pine also takes authorization from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which the city needs in hand before it can issue that permit.

For years the review sorted parcels into green, blue and red classifications by their relation to active woodpecker clusters and foraging areas. By July 2026 the Fish and Wildlife Service had told city leaders it would no longer recognize those classifications, and that every parcel in the city would need its review before tree clearing. Applicants still file through the agency's online IPaC system. The city has been weighing an amendment to Article 7 of the UDO that would end its local tree-clearing permit, leaving the federal review in place. Where clearing would harm an active woodpecker site, the federal process can extend to an incidental take permit and a habitat conservation plan, which the agency describes as time consuming and potentially costly.

That review sets the order of a project here. The pines on a lot are counted and mapped before a footprint is fixed, the house is placed to keep the trees the review is most likely to protect, and the clearing plan goes to the Fish and Wildlife Service before any equipment arrives. An ordinance approved in July 2026 adds protection and notification rules to Article 7 for Venus flytraps, pitcher plants and sundews as well, so a lot near wet ground gets a look for those plants in the same walk. We confirm the current federal and city steps with the Planning and Zoning Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service's Raleigh office for each lot, because both have been changing.

For a buyer, the review belongs inside the due-diligence period. The pine count and the agency's answer can take time, and a lot whose best building site sits under a stand of pine may carry a smaller or differently placed house than its size suggests. A lot where the review has already been done still needs its authorization checked, since the older lot classifications no longer apply.

In Boiling Spring Lakes the tree survey comes before the floor plan.

The trees that stay shape the house. A stand of retained pine shades a west wall and breaks the wind, and it also stands within falling distance of a roof. The site phase of a new home is where those tradeoffs get drawn: which pines the footprint works around, how far the roof sits from the tallest of them, and where the drive can run without crossing the ground the review protects.

Limestone close under the sand is why sinkholes open here.

Boiling Spring Lakes sits on the Castle Hayne limestone, close enough to the surface that groundwater dissolves cavities in its top layer and the sand above can settle into them. A 1983 sinkhole hazard reduction plan prepared for the town traced the sinkhole problems here directly to that dissolution, and it records sinkholes opening beside the Army rail line in 1962 and on the dam's upstream slope in 1976. The state's Division of Water Resources describes sinkholes as common on the outer coastal plain wherever the Castle Hayne or River Bend formations lie at or near the surface, and notes that most of them flood and read today as small round lakes.

The site analysis looks for that history on the ground. A round depression, a wet hollow in otherwise sandy woods or settling near an old structure earns soil borings by a geotechnical engineer before a foundation type is chosen, and the foundation is designed for what the borings find. The same sandy soils that drain fast on a rise can sit wet in a pocosin low a few hundred feet away, and that difference decides where Brunswick County Environmental Health will allow a drainfield.

Flood mapping follows the lakes and the creeks that feed them. Where a FEMA panel draws a Special Flood Hazard Area across a lot, Article 11 of the UDO sets the regulatory flood protection elevation at the base flood elevation plus two feet of freeboard, or at least two feet above the highest adjacent grade where no base flood elevation exists, and a new house holds its reference level to that line. The article counts substantial improvement over any five-year period, at 50 percent of the structure's market value. Article 11 is being revised in 2026, so we confirm the adopted figures with the floodplain administrator for the specific lot.

Fire belongs to this ground too. In May 2025 the Sunset Road Fire burned 1,331 acres in Boiling Spring Lakes; the NC Forest Service traced it to a debris burn and described the fuel as heavy pocosin brush under pond and longleaf pine, over organic soils that can hold ground fire for a long time when dry. The preserve around the city is managed with prescribed fire by the Plant Conservation Program, The Nature Conservancy and the NC Forest Service. The site analysis notes where pocosin brush and pine straw run up to the house site, and the design keeps that fuel back from the walls.

Inland as it is, the city sits in the 150 mph wind zone.

Note c to Table R301.2(4) of the 2018 NC Residential Code splits Brunswick County at US 17: 140 mph to the west, 150 mph to the east. No US 17 runs inside Boiling Spring Lakes, and the city lies on the coastal side of the highway, so a house anywhere in town is designed for a 150 mph ultimate design wind speed. That figure carries two code consequences. Section R301.2.1.1 sends construction at 130 mph and above to a recognized high-wind design standard, and Section R4601.1 applies Chapter 46, the code's coastal and flood construction chapter, in every 150 mph zone. A house among the pines of Boiling Spring Lakes answers to the same chapter as one on the beach at Oak Island.

Exposure is the lot-level variable. A house tucked into retained pines stands in more sheltered terrain than one on a cleared lot facing open water across a lake, and the engineer reads each direction on its own. Every home we design here pursues FORTIFIED Gold, the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety's top designation, verified by an independent evaluator: a sealed roof deck, rated protection at the openings and a continuous load path from the roof to the foundation. Many insurers recognize the designation. Durability details for a house in the pines cover the rest: connectors and fasteners chosen for humid air, and a roof and gutters that shed pine straw.

On a lot beside pocosin brush, the details that keep wind out also help against embers. Pine straw collects in roof valleys and gutters, so the roof is drawn with few valleys and the gutters with guards the straw can't pack into, and the attic and crawlspace vents carry fine screens. At the foundation, a strip of gravel or paving takes the place of mulch and pine straw against the walls, and the site plan keeps the brush the Sunset Road Fire burned through back from the house.

Humidity is the other constant. Lakes, pocosin and shade keep the air heavy through a long summer, and a wooded lot dries slowly. Sub-1.0 ACH50 is our design target, drawn on the plans with a continuous air barrier across every joint and penetration and confirmed by a blower-door test before handover. Built to the Physics of the Coast lays out why wind pressure and humidity drive the design even this far from the surf, and how a tight house keeps fresh air covers the ventilation that has to come with the air barrier. Mechanical equipment is sized to the calculated load so it runs long enough to pull moisture out of the air.

New construction in Boiling Spring Lakes fits between the pines.

A new house on a wooded lot

New construction in Boiling Spring Lakes usually runs in this order: the federal pine review, the septic evaluation, the lot drainage plan, then the building permit. On a lot at the 15,300-square-foot minimum, the 40-foot front, 10-foot side and 25-foot rear setbacks and the 30 percent impervious cap set the building envelope. The pines that have to stay and the drainfield both take room inside it. The site analysis puts all of it on one plan before design starts.

Renovating an older house near the lakes

The city has been selling lots since the early 1960s, so some houses here are decades old. Renovating an older house in a mapped flood zone runs into Article 11's substantial-improvement line: work costing 50 percent of the structure's market value, counted over any five-year period, brings the whole house up to the elevation rules for new construction. On a septic lot, an added bedroom sends the system back to Brunswick County Environmental Health, and an addition that widens the footprint counts against the 30 percent impervious cap. We price the scope against those lines before it is set.

An ADU on a Boiling Spring Lakes lot

Section 6.3 of the UDO allows one accessory dwelling unit per lot. Its gross floor area can reach half of the main house's floor area, and its footprint no more than 40 percent of the main house's living area. The same section rules out a separate detached garage and a separate accessory unit on one lot, though the unit can be built as a second story inside a detached garage if the building stays at or under 28 feet. The unit needs Brunswick County approval for its water and septic, or a connection to the county system, and one off-street parking space for each bedroom. An ADU feasibility check on a septic lot starts with whether the soil can carry the second dwelling.

A detached garage, shed or workshop follows Section 6.2. It can stand 28 feet tall, sits at least 10 feet from the side and rear lot lines, with an accessory building on a waterfront lot at least 25 feet from the rear line, and a residence gets no more than two accessory buildings besides one detached garage or carport, except on an R-6 lot of five acres or more. Their combined footprint is capped by lot size: 900 square feet on a lot under half an acre, 1,200 square feet up to an acre and 1,500 square feet up to 4.99 acres, and on any lot under five acres the garage and accessory buildings together can't outgrow the house's own footprint. On a septic lot, the drainfield and its repair area claim part of the same back yard.

NC 87 carries Boiling Spring Lakes between Southport and US 17.

NC 87 runs north and south through the middle of the city. South, it meets NC 211 for the short run into Southport, about 15 minutes from the center of town; north, it heads toward US 17 and the Winnabow country beyond. The Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point lies to the east toward the Cape Fear River, and the 2019 Joint Land Use Study for the terminal counted all or part of Boiling Spring Lakes inside its three-mile study area, with the city as a study partner. The study notes that the city grew along the terminal's rail corridor. Its height recommendation concerns habitable buildings taller than five stories (50 feet), above the UDO's 40-foot residential limit.

The neighbors cover a wide range of ground. Southport's river-town lots sit on the Cape Fear a short drive south. The golf-community lots of St. James lie to the southwest under their own town code and association review, and Oak Island's canal and oceanfront lots lie beyond it across the Intracoastal Waterway. North up NC 87, the acreage around Winnabow is unincorporated county land with its own well-and-septic questions, and Leland's master-planned communities sit farther on toward Wilmington.

Inside the city, the character of a lot changes with what it borders: a lake, the preserve, NC 87 or another wooded lot. The site analysis reads each of those edges for what it brings, whether that is a flood panel along a lake, a prescribed burn next door, a 75-foot highway setback or a neighbor's pines.

We design and direct the build from Southport through our trade-partner model, under North Carolina Residential Contractor License #109520. We're members of the Brunswick County Home Builders Association, and 910-946-5512 reaches us about a lot in Boiling Spring Lakes, or you can start your project online.