Beautiful home! Even if the stone is level with the topsoil the problem is it might still drain to dirt below the stone. It looks like your yard does slope away from the drive so you might be ok. Its not a HUGE deal...i only brought it up because my mind works that way haha!

In regards to digging ponds...we do but usually only for industrial parks. We are a union contractor so we cant really compete with the other guys. I dont get to spend as much time on here as id like (so much information) so i may not be able to give much advice/opinions as other people. One thing i noticed is in our line of work when excavating a pond we are using that material to build a building pad. Most people on here are adding a pond and dont have any where for the excavated material to go so they build berms around the pond. I will say i always prefer a natural cut pond to a berm pond...to many things to worry about in regards to leaks or dams breaking.

Side note...in a private pond are safety shelfs required? In most cases for industrial/office parks they are...was kind of curious about that.