Ranch Estates & Family Compounds in Bandera

Yes. Texas does not license general contractors at the state level, so a property owner can act as their own builder. That is the legal answer; the practical one is longer. Bandera County does not issue a general building permit outside the city, but it permits the sewage system and floodplain development, and the groundwater district has to register or permit the well; an owner-builder carries all three. State law also sets the International Residential Code as the standard for new single-family construction in the unincorporated areas it covers, with inspections at the foundation, framing, and completion stages, and the sewage system has to be designed and approved by the county regardless of who is building. An owner-builder carries all of that, plus scheduling and paying every trade, plus the risk on every decision. Some people do it well. Most people who call Woolsey have decided that the coordination, the pricing, and the accountability are what they are hiring, and that the house is the result.

It depends entirely on who has jurisdiction over the lot. Inside a city's limits, the city's adopted building code sets the threshold, and most codes exempt only a small one-story accessory building; a house is never exempt. Outside the city limits it is a different question, because Bandera County does not issue a general building permit in the unincorporated county; it permits the sewage system and floodplain development, and the groundwater district controls the well. What that means in practice is that the size of the building is rarely what triggers a permit in the county. A barn, a guest house, or a workshop can go up without a county building permit and still require a sewage permit if it has plumbing, a floodplain permit if it sits in a mapped flood area, and a driveway permit if it gets a new approach from a county road. A deed restriction or an architectural committee can add rules of its own. We map all of that for the specific parcel before we tell anyone what they can build.

Yes, and the Texas Hill Country is one of the easier places in the country to do it, because outside city limits the county does not zone land and does not limit how many houses a family puts on one tract. What governs a compound instead is infrastructure and paperwork. Bandera County does not issue a general building permit outside the city, but it permits the sewage system and floodplain development, and the groundwater district has to register or permit the well; an owner-builder carries all three. Every dwelling with plumbing adds to the sewage load, so the system is designed for the whole compound, not the first house. One well may or may not carry three households, and the groundwater district's rules decide what a second well would need. If the family intends to split the land among members, the county's subdivision rules come into play. And a deed restriction or an architectural committee can limit what the county does not. Woolsey plans the compound as one site plan, with the utilities, drives, and drainage laid out for every building at once, even when the buildings go up over several years.

Ten, for a registered household well, under the rule the Bandera County River Authority and Groundwater District adopted in 2022, which doubled the previous minimum. The district requires a permit for every well in the county except a registered well that qualifies for exemption, and a new household well on a tract smaller than ten acres does not qualify; it has to be permitted, and whether that permit is available is the district's decision. A compound whose water use grows past what one exempt well can supply, with several households, stock, and irrigation, is in the same position. Woolsey confirms the water before the land contract, not after, because on a Bandera County tract with no utility, the well decides whether there is a project at all.