Grandfathered in spring help

Hi everyone!
We are finally getting around to actually being able to start on our infrastructure. (Family Land officially in our name, septic system perc'd an approved, ect.) And I have a question about the spring on the property. Some back info:
My husband's grandfather first developed this spring nearly 70 years ago, and it is impressive. It has been disconnected and running freely out of the spring house for nearly 20 years, and it has such a strong flow that it has created it's own creek, dug down into the land nearly 6 feet. At the bottom of the steep trench is a baby creak about a foot deep and 1-2 feet wide in places. It is crystal clear. Once upon a time, it was hooked up to the farm house, but all that piping has long since been removed. The stream's use has been grandfathered in. Everywhere else in the county they are illegal to use for residential, but this spring is allowed. It runs strong and steady year round, even when the neighbor's 250' wells start drying up in the draught seasons, this spring keeps on chugging. It has never frozen, and never failed.

At the moment, the spring house is just a little cinder block hut with no door, and the water pours freely out of the doorway. It is very deep in that area, and muddy. If there is a dam/reservoir, it is underwater, but I don't think it exists anymore.

We have 100% rights to this water, and I would like to redevelop it. I would like to (somehow) route the water to a cistern on the highest point of the property, so that the water can then be gravity fed to the house we are building. Any overflow would be routed back into the 'creek'. I also think it would be fun to build the house near where the 'creek' flows off the property, as this has some lovely views, but I am concerned by the incredibly steep (almost completely vertical) 6' drop down to the creek bed. I doubt this would be stable enough for a house, but maybe about 20' back?

Anyway, are there any ways to get this wonderful spring water from its current place (about mid-level elevation on the property) up to where we want the cistern without the use electricity? Or as little electricity as possible?
If not, is there a way to develop the spring to go straight to the house with any semblance of water pressure? (The house would probably be around the same elevation as the spring head, although there are hills and valleys between)

How do we actually go about developing this spring?
And help or suggestions would be very much appreciated!
Thanks!

Have you looked into ram pumps? They take a little drop and multiply it into more lift than the amount of drop without electricity. You said the spring is mid level elevation, so there must be some drop as it leaves your property. The challenge would be to pipe that water horizontally along your spring "canyon" until the topography has naturally dropped away enough so the water falls from the pipe. If you can measure how much drop you can harness then you can get into specifics, like how much drop is needed to power a ram pump that can lift the water even higher, and if that would be high enough.

If you're like me, the spring starts too low in elevation and flows too near horizontal to ever produce a decent enough drop to power a ramp pump back up to the house. Which would leave wind or solar to run a pump up to your cistern. That gets into some math regarding how much water you use vs how much sun/wind you can harness to pump up. The higher your cistern is in elevation, the more water pressure you would have. You said there used to be plumbing involved, so if there was no cistern at or above house level then someone before you was likely using electricity to pump water to the house. You're in for a lot of hard math and planning to determine which option would work for you, but helping with stuff like that is what this community is great for!  

My spring is too low in elevation and house to high for this to work, so hopefully you have a bit more wiggle room and can explore these options further. At the very least, you can use your spring house to keep things cool like they did in the old days. Or even have a little place to take a dip yourself. OR if you don't have enough drop to ram pump as high as you want, maybe you still do have enough drop to power a mini turbine and make electricity. Perhaps for a little off grid shack where the views are good :)

Hi Matt!
I've never heard of a ram pump, but that may very work in my situation. True the area around the spring is flat and consists of waterlogged mud (maybe a 100sqft) but the vast majority is made up of steep rises and falls. We have two potential house sites. Both are about 300 ft from the well horizontally, one is level with the spring (although there is one big steep hill and a valley on either side in between), the other potential site is about 20' above the spring, but there is no fall for that one, it's directly up a hill across from the flat area. The cistern, if we use one, would be 50' higher than the spring, and about 250 feet of horizontal distance.

I'll see about scribbling on a map and loading up a picture so this makes more sense, but it sounds like the ram pump could work if we go with option 1, due to the steep drop off the hill. The land is mostly 15-20° grades, either up or down, in any direction although there are some flat bits

Thank you again! I will have to look in to ram pumps. Wind power could work too, we're up in the mountains (appalachians not rockies, haha) and so it's almost always at least a little breezy, usually more than that. Perhaps wind power could get water up to the cistern, so gravity could take care of the water pressure issue in the future house

First picture shows the hill crests on the property in white, and the black arrows are the direction water goes/the way the land slopes. The south side of the property, who's slope faces NNE towards the "creek", is MUCH steeper than the rest of the property, which faces SW towards the "creek"

the second picture shows the property's general elevations, where the high and low points are and the differences between them, on a sliding scale. Dark blue are the lowest point, green in the middle, and up to red which are the highest points. The dots of the same color are all within maybe 5' of one another in regards to height. Going back and looking at my photos and topo map, I realize I must have misremembered some stuff about the heights on the land in relation to the spring

the third picture shows where the "stuff" is on the property. Hopefully this clears some stuff up!

AnnaLea, there happens to be another current thread talking about hydrolic ram pumps.
https://permies.com/t/154617/Hydraulic-Rams-lift-water-Nil