Free on-site gate assessment - hinges, posts, and your LiftMaster or Nice gate operator checked before anything is quoted
The assessment is free and the quote is the invoice.
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AfterFast, Reliable Gate Access Control Across Highland Park
If you live in Highland Park, you already know that your driveway gate isn’t just a gate. It’s a 400-pound piece of ornamental iron history that has to open for you every single time, without groaning, without stalling, and without drawing attention to itself. Gate access control in Highland Park means keypads, phone entry, video intercoms, and card readers that work invisibly on estates where the gate may be older than the operator bolted to it. Our crews replace, retrofit, and recalibrate access systems on properties from Armstrong Parkway to Beverly Drive, and we answer the phone with a live person 24 hours a day. Call (325) 936-1371 when your keypad won’t take the code or the gate won’t answer your phone entry app.
Why Gatewood Fence & Gate Is Highland Park’s Preferred Gate Access Control Company
Hal Gatewood started this shop in 2001, and his name is on the invoice every time. That matters in Highland Park, where the homeowner wants to know who exactly is showing up, and a lot of our work comes from neighbors telling neighbors. We’re not a faceless operation. The person who answers the phone is the person who knows what a 1940s flat-bar gate profile looks like. Our Gate Access Control team has pulled aside more than a few historic gates on Preston Road side streets and found wiring that somebody else buried in a flower bed without conduit. Highland Park customers don’t ask us to cut corners, because they know what those corners cost later.
Response time to Highland Park is measured in minutes, not days. We coordinate scheduling from our Dallas-Fort Worth office, and crews serve Highland Park locally, so when a gate operator burns out on a Sunday evening, someone is there before dinner cools off. Our uniformed, background-checked technicians carry parts for LiftMaster, FAAC, Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, and BFT on the truck. Every job carries the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it isn’t done right, one call brings us back, no runaround, no questions about whose fault it was.
Our Gate Access Control Services in Highland Park
Keypad Entry
Highland Park keypads tend to be mounted on solid ornamental posts or stone pillars that were never drilled for modern low-voltage wiring, so the installation has to be surgical. A typical keypad entry installation in Highland Park runs $450-$900, depending on whether we’re surface-mounting and hiding the wire behind existing iron profile or boring through a 1930s masonry pier. We wire keypads to work with every major operator brand we service, and we spend the extra twenty minutes to make the entry code work on the first try, not the fourth. If your keypad is mounted where afternoon sun cooks it for six months straight, we’ll angle or shield it so the membrane doesn’t crack like the last one did.
Remote Control
Highland Park homes often have three or four vehicles, plus a nanny’s car, plus a landscape crew that arrives Tuesdays. That means remotes multiply, get lost, get sat on, and stop talking to the opener. We program, clone, and replace remotes for LiftMaster, Linear, and Ghost Controls systems, and we carry extra visor clips because they always break first. Expect to pay $60-$150 per remote programmed on site, less if you bring the vehicle and the old remote to the shop. The real savings comes from not paying a second trip for a remote that was never programmed right the first time.
Phone Entry
Phone entry systems in Highland Park solve a specific problem: the gate is at the street, the house is 150 feet back, and the intercom buzzer from the 1990s sounds like a dying smoke detector. We install and service phone entry systems that call your cell, let you open the gate from anywhere, and log every entry so you know whether the fence contractor actually showed up. A phone entry system with a cellular connection typically runs $1,200-$2,800 in Highland Park depending on how many lines and relays are needed and whether the existing wire can be reused. These systems are especially useful on estates where a separate service entrance has to stay locked down.
Card Reader
Card readers make sense when more than a half-dozen people need regular access: household staff, pool service, dog walkers, contractors. We mount readers in discreet stainless or brass housings that blend with the gate’s original hardware, not the plastic bubble that most suppliers ship. A single-door card reader with a keypad backup runs $700-$1,500 installed in Highland Park, with cards programmed individually so a lost card gets deactivated without having to reissue the whole stack. For properties with a rear service drive and a front gate, we often run two readers off one controller.
What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Highland Park
We’re certified to service nine major gate brands, and on most Highland Park service calls that means FAAC, Linear, Viking, and BFT operators that were installed by a specialist ten or twenty years ago. We keep common boards, remotes, and photo-eyes for these brands stocked on our trucks, so the fix doesn’t turn into a wait for a brown box from a distributor in Ohio. When a Viking operator on a slide gate off Beverly Drive fails, we carry the replacement parts, and we know how to match the new board’s voltage settings to the existing loop detector. You shouldn’t have to replace a whole operator because one relay failed. Hal’s repair-first philosophy means we fix the part that broke, not the part that’s profitable to replace.
Common Gate Access Control Problems We See in Highland Park Homes
- Travel-limit drift in spring: Highland Park sits on Blackland Prairie clay that swells hard after spring rain and shrinks with summer heat. That seasonal movement shifts post footings on swing gates enough that the operator’s travel limits no longer match the physical gate position, so the keypad accepts the code but the gate doesn’t move. We recalibrate travel limits and often reset post footings to stop the cycle.
- Failed underground operators: Many Highland Park estates have FAAC or Apollo underground operators that have been running for 15 years with no maintenance. When they fail, the gate may open an inch and stop, leaving the access system dead even though the keypad and phone entry test fine.
- Missing entrapment protection: Gates built in the 1920s through the 1960s often predate modern safety photocell requirements. A new safety retrofit has to be hidden inside the existing ornamental profile, because the Town of Highland Park’s building department won’t approve an obvious sensor bolted onto a historic flat-bar gate. We have fabricated recessed channels that hold photo-eyes invisibly.
- Ice-stress cracks near hinge posts: After a freeze like February 2021, we see stress cracks in ornamental iron welds at collar joints where the gate leaf meets the hinge post. A gate that binds mid-travel can burn out a LiftMaster or FAAC operator within weeks if it isn’t caught. We weld these cracks on site and reinforce the joint.
Pricing for Gate Access Control in Highland Park, TX
Real numbers help you plan, so here they are. A keypad replacement in Highland Park typically runs $350-$600, and adding a phone entry system runs $1,200-$2,800 as noted above. A video intercom with an interior monitor and app integration runs $1,800-$4,500 depending on whether we can reuse existing wire or need to run new low-voltage cable through a mature landscape bed. Underground operator replacement on a historic swing gate starts around $4,000 including excavation, re-setting the post footing, and recalibrating the travel limits. The price is quoted and agreed before any work starts, so the invoice matches the quote. Every estimate to Highland Park is free, and if you have a written estimate from another company, we’ll give you a free second opinion. We also honor a permanent 10% discount for seniors and veterans, and $40 off any repair over $200.
If you’re in Highland Park and need exact pricing on gate access control, call (325) 936-1371 and we’ll have someone out to measure, test, and quote it in writing. No trip charge inside the county.
We Also Serve Cities Near Highland Park
While this page is written for Highland Park, our crews regularly serve the surrounding communities of Dallas, Plano, Irving, and Richardson. If you live just across the Dallas line and have a gate access problem, call the same number, and the same crew will come out. You can also read more about our broader work at Gate Access Control in Highland Park. The real difference is that when the job is in Highland Park, we bring the experience that works on that particular block, with its 90-year-old gates and its own building department.
Serving Highland Park, TX - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Highland Park area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Gate Access Control in Highland Park
Yes, with one condition: the original gate profile has to stay. The Town of Highland Park operates its own building department, and it enforces aesthetic standards that most towns don’t. We have upgraded dozens of Highland Park gates from a bare push-button opener to a full keypad entry and video intercom system while keeping the original flat-bar iron intact. We mount keypads in period-correct housings, hide wiring inside the frame where we can, and submit the paperwork the town actually asks for. Call (325) 936-1371 for the full rundown on your gate, and we’ll tell you what the town will want to see before you file anything.
Your gate posts are sitting in Blackland Prairie clay. That soil swells with spring rain and shrinks in the summer drought, and it’s strong enough to move a post footing a quarter inch or more. A gate that was perfectly aligned in February can be overrunning its travel limits by April. We see this in Highland Park every single year, and the fix is recalibrating the travel limits and, on the worst cases, re-boring the post footing so it doesn’t shift. When the gate binds, don’t keep forcing it, because that’s how a FAAC or LiftMaster operator burns out. Get it recalibrated before June heat hits.
Yes, and we do it regularly on Highland Park estate gates. The sensors have to meet current safety code, but the Town of Highland Park won’t accept an ugly plastic sensor bolted to a 1930s flat-bar gate. We fabricate a recessed channel that mounts inside the gate’s existing profile so the photo-eyes sit flush or hidden behind a period-appropriate cover plate. The wiring runs inside the tube or along the back face where no one looks. It costs more than a surface-mount job, because we’re fabricating on site to match the original bar profile. Expect a retrofit like this to run $500-$1,000 including parts, welding, and calibration.
When a slide gate’s pinion gear strips during an ice storm, the gate usually freezes in place mid-travel, and the operator keeps trying to drive the rack until it overheats or burns out. The fix is to replace the stripped rack segment and pinion gear, check the gate’s rollers for ice damage, and recalibrate the travel stops. In Highland Park, where slide gates are often on newer luxury builds with integrated keypads and camera access, this is about a four-to-six hour job on site, and we carry rack stock and pinion gears for the common slide gate operators. Don’t run the gate after a freeze until someone checks it, because a stripped rack will chew up the new pinion in a week.
All the time. The older Highland Park estate gate was a manual swing gate with a latch and maybe a bell, and it predates every access control system that exists today. Retrofitting phone entry onto that gate means adding a low-voltage operator (often an underground FAAC or an articulated arm), installing the phone entry controller, and then wiring the whole thing so the gate still looks like it did in 1955. The cost for a full retrofit, including the operator, phone entry controller, and the required safety edges, starts around $5,500 in Highland Park. Call (325) 936-1371 for a written quote, and we’ll walk the gate with you before anyone starts digging.
How We Handle Highland Park’s Historic Gates Versus New Construction
Highland Park’s housing stock spans two eras. The Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Mediterranean estates built from the 1920s through the 1960s often have original ornamental iron gates whose profiles were forged by hand and can’t be matched off a shelf. The teardown-rebuilds and new luxury construction since the 2000s have layered in sophisticated slide and swing systems with integrated keypads, video intercoms, and camera access control. On the same block, you’ll find a 1948 swing gate with a cracked hinge post and a 2019 slide gate with a rack and pinion operator. The access control work is completely different, but the standard is the same: the gate opens every time, quietly, without calling attention to itself.
One job that sticks out from yards on Armstrong Parkway: a 1930s Tudor Revival estate where the original underground operator had failed on a heavy ornamental swing gate, and the hinge post footing had been cracked for years by Dallas clay movement. Our crew fabricated a period-correct collar joint to match the existing flat bar, then re-bored and reset the post footing before recalibrating the FAAC operator and keypad entry. The gate now swings silently and keeps its travel limits even after spring rain seasons. That’s the kind of job where a technician who doesn’t know Highland Park would have just swapped in a square-tube gate and been sent back by the town. We keep the profile original, because in Highland Park, the profile is part of the property.
The Real Difference in Highland Park Access Control
Highland Park is an ultra-affluent, self-governing enclave entirely surrounded by Dallas, with one of the highest concentrations of custom ornamental wrought-iron and steel automated driveway gates in North Texas. Many are original to estates built between the 1920s and 1960s. Gate repair here is disproportionately specialized work: matching historic ironwork profiles, recalibrating high-end operators like FAAC and Apollo, and satisfying homeowners whose properties are worth $3M to $10M and who expect invisible, aesthetically faithful repairs that a generic Dallas suburb gate call never demands. When a gate access system fails on a Highland Park estate, the owner doesn’t want a temporary fix. They want the gate working tonight, and they want it to still work in five years. That’s a different job than installing a $300 keypad on a builder-grade steel gate in a subdivision.
If your gate access control needs work in Highland Park, call (325) 936-1371. Hal and his crew answer the phone live, 24/7. The truck comes to you, the estimate is free, and the 90-Day Done Right Promise is in writing, not hidden in a contract. The name is on the shop, and the shop is down the road. That’s the oldest accountability there is.
Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving Highland Park since 2001.