Backyard pickleball courts in St. Louis

We build backyard pickleball courts across the St. Louis area. A full-size court needs a pad of at least 30 × 60 feet (34 × 64 is better), a slab built for the region's swelling clay and 30-inch frost, and an acrylic playing surface. Published Midwest ranges put a single court at $25,000–$45,000 on asphalt and $45,000–$80,000+ on post-tension concrete. Most yards go from signed contract to first game in six to ten weeks.

Site visit before any price · Free, written, itemized quotes · Your city's court rules checked first · Acrylic or modular tile, built by a crew with more than a decade of courts behind it

Will a court fit in your yard?

Start with the rectangle. The lines are 20 × 44 feet, but the hard surface has to be bigger so players can run down lobs and lunge wide. USA Pickleball's guidance sets 30 × 60 feet as the minimum total surface and 34 × 64 as preferred. Add the fence line, a gate and a path from the house, and a comfortable backyard court claims a footprint around 40 × 70 feet.

Then subtract what the code takes. Most St. Louis–area cities keep accessory structures out of the front yard and some distance from side and rear lot lines — 5 feet in Kirkwood, 6 feet in St. Peters, as much as 50 feet in Ladue's large-lot districts. A regular half-acre lot usually fits a court with room to spare; a 50-foot-wide inner-suburb lot is tight, and a 30 × 60 court may fit only if it runs lengthwise down the yard.

The court space planner takes your lot dimensions and setbacks and tells you whether a 30 × 60 or 34 × 64 pad fits. Print the result and attach it to your quote request.

Which slab we recommend for St. Louis yards

For most backyard courts here we recommend post-tension concrete. Here's the reasoning, in short:

• St. Louis clay swells when it's wet and shrinks when it dries. Rigid pavement cracks when the ground under it moves.
• Winter brings roughly 66 days a year that can freeze overnight and thaw by afternoon — our arithmetic from NOAA's 1991–2020 Lambert normals (about 85 days at or below 32°F, about 19 that stay there). Water gets into cracks and pries them open.
• Asphalt cracks and the cracks show through the coating. Conventional concrete needs control joints, and on a court those joints run across the playing area.
• A post-tension slab is held in compression by stressed steel tendons, so it doesn't need control joints and resists cracking from soil movement.

Asphalt is still the right answer for some yards: a tight budget, a court you expect to replace in fifteen years, or a flat, well-drained site. We'll say which one we'd build on your lot and why. The whole comparison is in our post-tension vs asphalt vs concrete guide.

What a backyard court from us includes

Every written quote itemizes these lines so you can compare it against anyone else's:

• Site layout and excavation — stripping topsoil, cutting to grade and hauling off spoil.
• Base — compacted crushed stone over a prepared subgrade, at a depth set for your soil.
• Slab — post-tension concrete, conventional concrete or asphalt, with the slope set so water leaves the court.
• Cure — 28 days for new concrete before any coating, per coating manufacturers.
• Surface — 100% acrylic resurfacer and color coats with regulation lines, hard or cushioned.
• Net system — permanent posts set in footings, with net.
• Fence — height and material to your city's limit, posts set below the 30-inch frost line.
• Drainage — the slope, plus any edge drain, swale or drywell your lot or city requires.
• Permits — who applies for what, written down.

Lighting, windscreen, acoustic panels, benches and landscaping are priced as separate lines. Read about lighting and fencing before you decide on either.

What it costs

For a single backyard court, the most local published figures are Midwest commercial ranges from a St. Louis sports contractor: $25,000–$45,000 per court on asphalt and $45,000–$80,000+ on post-tension. National residential guides put a typical 30 × 60 court at $20,000–$50,000. These are published ranges, not our prices.

What moves your number: slab type, how much cut and fill the slope needs, access for equipment (a 10-foot side gate versus a crane over the house), fence height and length, and whether lights go in now or later. The cost guide breaks it all down, and the instant quote gives you a ballpark in a minute.

Neighbors and noise

Site the court for sound before you site it for the view. The pop of paddle on ball carries, and St. Louis has the region's best-known example: four club courts in Kirkwood, built about 60 feet from homes, failed post-construction noise testing against the St. Louis County standard even after sound-absorbing fence material went up. The legal case is over; the lesson about distance stands.

What helps on a backyard court:

• Distance. One acoustics firm's published guidance flags courts within about 350 feet of homes for mitigation. Most backyards can't get that far, so use every foot you have — put the court on the side of the yard away from the neighbor's bedrooms and patio.
• Something solid in between. A garage, a house or a dense barrier between the court and the neighbor's windows does more than open air.
• Equipment and hours. USA Pickleball's Quiet Category paddles and balls cut the sound at the source. House rules about early mornings cost nothing.
• Fence material. Acoustic panels help a little — roughly 5 dB in one published guideline — but they won't fix a court that's simply too close.

The full picture is in our noise guide.

Permits and HOA approval

Expect at least one approval. St. Louis County alone has 88 municipalities plus the unincorporated county, and each sets its own rules for accessory courts, fence heights and lighting. A few examples of how much they differ:

• Kirkwood allows open-mesh court fences up to 15 feet with a fence permit; most cities cap fences at 6 feet.
• Wildwood requires Planning and Zoning Commission approval of a court's location and bans court lighting in its "R" districts (it may be authorized on 3-acre NU lots).
• Ladue and Town and Country prohibit court lighting on residential lots.
• Kirkwood requires a stormwater practice once a project adds 1,000 square feet of impervious surface, and a 30 × 60 court adds 1,800.

If you live in a subdivision with covenants, the HOA comes first. Our permits guide has a table by jurisdiction; we confirm your address's rules at the site visit.

How the project runs

1. Quote request. Tell us your city, rough yard dimensions and timeline on the quote form. Photos help.
2. Site visit. Our court crew measures the space, checks grade and drainage, and notes access, utilities and neighbors' windows.
3. Written quote. Slab type, base, surface system, fence, drainage, permits and schedule, line by line.
4. Approvals. HOA first, then city permits.
5. Build. Excavation, base and slab in about a week of good weather; then the 28-day cure for concrete.
6. Surface and finish. Coating and lines on dry days at 50°F and rising, then fence, net and cleanup.

Average freeze dates at Lambert are April 2 and November 2. A slab poured by early September can usually be coated the same season; later than that, we pour in fall and coat in spring.

Our court crew is a family-owned court builder that has built courts across Missouri and Illinois for more than a decade, and hundreds of them: backyard and community pickleball, basketball and multi-sport courts, outdoors and indoors. The crew is an authorized installer for a modular court-tile system and backs the courts it builds with lifetime support.

Not ready to talk yet? Start with the complete St. Louis court construction guide. It covers soils, slab choice, drainage, permits, noise, cost and the season, in the order we build.

Frequently asked questions

How long until we can play? For a concrete court, about six to ten weeks from contract in a normal season: permits, a week or so of site work and slab, a 28-day cure, then coating. An HOA review adds time. Asphalt also waits about 30 days before coating, per coating manufacturers.

Can you build on a sloped yard? Usually. A slope means more cut, fill and sometimes a short retaining wall, all of which show up as quote lines. The site visit tells us which.

Do we need lights? Only if your city allows them and you'll play after dark. If you might add them later, have conduit placed while the site is open.

Will a court raise our stormwater bill or need a drywell? It depends on the city. Kirkwood requires a stormwater practice at 1,000 square feet of new impervious surface; many cities don't. See stormwater and drainage.

Can we add a basketball hoop? Yes — that's a multi-sport court, and it changes the pad layout, so decide before we pour.

Get a quote

Tell us where you are and what you want to build. We'll schedule a site visit and send you a written quote. Get a quote.