Evergreen Contracting & Irrigation designs and installs landscape lighting for homes in Red Lion. This borough has one of the largest historic districts in York County, full of houses with detail worth showing off. We design around the house in front of us. Free estimates arrive within a week, and repairs get scheduled in 1 to 2 weeks. Reach out and let us light up your home.
A Borough Built on Cigars and Furniture
At its peak between 1880 and 1930, roughly 150 cigar factories operated inside this borough. Local histories reckon the town produced somewhere around a tenth of every cigar made in America. Furniture followed, with large factories turning out hand-crafted pieces for over a century. Those industries paid for the houses that still line these streets.
That matters for lighting because the money went into the buildings. The historic district counts nearly 1,500 contributing structures, most of them homes built between 1880 and 1935. Colonial Revival and Italianate are the two dominant styles. Both have features that come alive under light, and both are ruined by lighting done carelessly.
Italianate Brackets Were Made for This
If your house has deep overhanging eaves supported by decorative brackets, you have an Italianate, and you own one of the best lighting subjects there is. Those brackets are the signature of the style, and by day they mostly read as a dark band under the roofline. Light them from below and everything changes.
An uplight placed close to the wall throws each bracket’s shadow up onto the facade in a repeating rhythm. What was a flat dark strip becomes the most striking thing on the house. Tall narrow windows and heavy cornices respond the same way. We test the placement after dark before anything is buried, because a foot of difference in position changes the whole effect.
The Highest Borough in the County
At 911 feet, this is the highest borough in York County, edging out neighboring Dallastown by eleven feet. Sitting up on that ground means more wind and more weather than the valley towns get. Fixtures need to be properly anchored and rated for it, not staked in and hoped for.
The elevation also means plenty of properties have grade to them, with steps, banks, and terraced yards. Those level changes are exactly where people misstep after dark. We light each one so footing stays clear from the sidewalk to the door.
Close-Set Homes in the Historic District
Inside the district, houses sit near one another on modest lots. That rules out wide floods that spray light in every direction. One badly aimed fixture puts glare in a neighbor’s front window and undoes the whole design. We use narrow beams and shielded fixtures aimed strictly at your property.
We also check the result from several vantage points before finishing. Something that looks right from your own porch can be harsh seen from across the street. Fixture height and beam angle both get adjusted for that. Good lighting should never generate a complaint.
Practical Light for Everyday Use
Before any of the decorative work, the routes you walk nightly need to be safe. The path in from the driveway, the porch steps, the back entry, these are where people actually trip. We light those first and light them consistently. Accent work follows.
Path lights get spaced so their pools of light overlap rather than leaving dark gaps between them. Motion fixtures cover spots you use only occasionally. Timers handle the rest so nothing runs longer than needed. We do the same on nearby properties in Spry and Stonybrook.
Built for York County Weather
Summers here bring humidity and hard storms, and winters bring ice and repeated freezing. We install weather-rated fixtures with sealed connections that manage both. Low-voltage LEDs give warm, steady light while drawing very little power. Operating cost stays minimal and failures stay rare.
Placement accounts for how a yard fills in through the season. A fixture buried in shrubs by July is money wasted, and one set too near a lawn edge gets clipped by a mower within a year. We think about where a light needs to sit in two years, not just today.
Why Homeowners Here Call Evergreen
This is a borough that knows its own history and keeps its properties accordingly. Evergreen Contracting & Irrigation works to that standard. Here is what comes with your project:
- Over two decades of hands-on experience since 2001
- A team skilled in both irrigation and outdoor lighting
- A two year warranty on new installations
- Manufacturer warranties for added assurance
- Discounts for our military service members
- Maintenance on a quarterly, monthly, or seasonal schedule
- A locally owned, family-run approach to every job
A few fixtures or a whole property, the care does not change. We do the work right and stand behind it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What color of light should I use on an older home?
Warm white, and the numbers matter here. Color temperature is measured in Kelvin, and the industry standard for residential landscape lighting sits between 2700K and 3000K. That range flatters brick, stone, wood, and foliage, which is exactly what most homes in this borough are made of.
Anything from 4000K upward reads cool and blue, and on a period home it looks sterile and institutional. It also drains the warmth out of old brick so the wall reads grey rather than red. A further catch is that cool light appears brighter to the eye at the same output, which sounds useful but actually increases glare and flattens depth.
The other rule is consistency. Mixing a warm path light with a cool uplight on the same facade looks unintentional and cheap. We keep one color temperature across each area, and we show you the effect on your own house after dark before anything is fixed in place.
Can you have too much landscape lighting?
Easily, and over-lighting is the single most common regret we see. The instinct is to light everything, but a yard lit evenly from end to end looks flat, washed out, and slightly unsettling. Contrast is what makes a property look good at night, and contrast requires darkness as well as light.
A better approach is to pick three to five focal points that genuinely deserve attention. A specimen tree, the entry, a section of stonework, perhaps a gable. Everything else stays quiet or gets a low wash. Path lighting should guide, not blaze.
Over-lighting also costs more to install and more to run, so restraint saves money twice. If you are unsure, it is far easier to add a fixture next season than to undo a design that overwhelms the house.
How do you stop lights from glaring in people’s eyes?
Glare happens when the bulb itself is visible to the eye. It is genuinely counterproductive, because a bright source in view causes the pupil to constrict, which makes everything around it harder to see. So a glaring fixture reduces visibility rather than improving it.
The fixes are straightforward. We use shielded or full-cutoff fixtures with cowls that hide the source and push light where it belongs. Path lights sit low and cast down onto the ground rather than out at eye level. And we avoid the runway effect by staggering fixtures on alternating sides of a walk instead of lining them up like an airstrip.
What does a landscape lighting system cost?
It depends far more on your property than on any price list. The main drivers are how many fixtures the design calls for, the size and shape of your lot, the length of wire runs, fixture quality, and whether any hard surfaces need to be crossed. A modest front-of-house design and a full property plan sit a long way apart.
The useful thing to know is that a good system can be built in stages. We size the transformer and wiring at the start so you can add zones later without redoing the groundwork. Our estimates are free and come within a week, so you get a real number for your own property rather than a guess.
Will lighting hold up on an exposed hilltop lot?
Yes, provided it is specified for the conditions. We use weather-rated fixtures with sealed connections and anchor them properly rather than relying on a stake pushed into soft ground. Higher, more exposed ground gets extra attention on mounting.
Low-voltage LED systems handle wind, ice, and freeze cycles well and last for years with minimal attention. Seasonal maintenance keeps fixtures aimed correctly and connections sound. If something ever shifts, we come back and put it right.
Contact Us
Ready to see your home’s best details after sunset? Evergreen Contracting & Irrigation is ready to help. We provide free estimates within a week, so you can move ahead quickly. With seasonal service and maintenance, your lighting keeps performing all year.
Contact us today to book your consultation and take the first step toward a beautifully lit property.