The image above is a plan of our land. The green lines will be rows of crop trees - walnut, chestnut, pecan underplanted with fruit trees and berries. Every second row will be blueberries or hazelnuts or other low growing shrub. Between the rows is pasture.

Our house site is at the end of the south fork of the driveway.

Will get some pictures of the dam wall from the perspective of the kitchen windows today.

The driveway is the brown lines above the large pond at the bottom of the lot?

What comes to mind for taller close to the dam wall area that is not meadow is Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra mixed with ornamental grasses.

If you need taller for screening between houses, can't really judge elevation from this or the actual future house site, you may need to plant a couple larger trees closer to the property line away from the dam. Depending on the actual house site, the orchard trees may be all the screening you need.

Here is the view from the kitchen window, you can see the massive dirt wall of the dam.

Thanks Cristopher for the advice! Our house site will be between the drive (that reddish line coming in from the east side of the property) and the pond. It’s about 15’ higher than my in-laws house and there’s a small rise, maybe 2 or 3 feet between the two houses. I’ve attached a crappy topo map which might help slightly. Will try to find a better one.

Thank you Anna! I will check it out!

Added a couple more pictures of the site

Thoughts: I think you need a road, farm road is fine, between your house and the in-laws. It will come in handy. My water brain and with the much better pictures of the site in question says the natural water flow out of the dam goes through here. You'll need it to maintain the dam and the stream channel.

The road also can be the dividing line between the meadow on the dam wall and the taller pretty for the in-laws on the fence side of the road.

The next question becomes what are the moisture and soil conditions in the unmowed, tall meadow on the other side of the fence? What native shrubs will do well there?

Another thought for pretty, pollinators and birds is Winterberry, Ilex verticillata.

http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=d440