Upper Straits Lake

Oakland County lists Upper Straits among the lakes with a court-set normal level. The Oakland County Circuit Court set that level at 930.80 feet above mean sea level, and the Upper Straits Clean Lake Association publishes the same figure. Spicer Group, the engineer that replaced the lake-level structure for the Water Resources Commissioner, describes Upper Straits as a kettle lake fed by rain and stormwater, not by a river. The structure sits at the west end, near Green Lake Road, between Upper Straits and Middle Straits. The La Playa association on the lake states that boats cannot pass that structure into the rest of the Straits chain. Open water here is a different property from frontage on Middle Straits or Lower Straits, and from Orchard Lake to the east.

How the house meets the water is the sale. The same morphometry study maps a canal tier of about 4 acres, separate from the open lake. Deeded frontage, a canal edge, and a neighborhood beach membership are three different properties. Bayside Beach, a community beach association on the lake, states that Upper Straits is an all-sports lake with no public access and that its launch is for members. Membership there is elective inside the association's boundaries. Mooring slips are limited and run on a wait list. A membership and a slip are not a deed that touches the water. The Upper Straits Clean Lake Association tells boaters to run counterclockwise.

The city, the township, and the school district are three readings off the same address. Shoreline runs through West Bloomfield Township and the City of Orchard Lake Village. The city's ZIP codes are 48323 and 48324. Almost all of Orchard Lake Village is in the West Bloomfield School District, and one portion of the city is in Walled Lake Consolidated Schools. Bayside Beach, on the township shore, says its own boundaries include both of those districts. C & G Newspapers reported in June 2025 that homes sit on 223 parcels along the lake. That is a real shoreline of houses, and it is still more than one tax bill. Read the municipality, the school district, and the tax bill off the address before anyone prices the house like an inland colonial.

A July dock is not an August dock. The court level is a single number, 930.80 feet, not a published summer-and-winter pair. The association's president told C & G, in that June 2025 report, that he has seen the lake fall as much as about 2 feet in a hot summer, enough that some hoists no longer clear. The 95-foot sounding is one deep spot on the chart. Mean depth is 18 feet. Usable depth at the seawall is what gets priced.