Sewage pump

I have two buildings on my property; a home I live in and a large (1800 sqft) shop. I will be retiring sometime in the next ten years and the plan is to rent out my house and build a small apartment in the shop for my wife and I. I want to place the bathroom and sewer plumbing out there now and am looking at options. In order to get enough fall for the sewer line I have to run the line out to the FRONT of my house. It is a fairly long distance across concrete and asphalt, past utilities etc. It also means that I have to trench inside what is going to be the apartment area to get to where we want the bathroom to be.

A second option would be to go a shorter distance around the back of the house along an easily trenchable area. The problem is that by the time I get to the house I will be too low to hook into the home sewer line. I estimate that I will be about 3 feet too low by the time I get there so I would have to pump up at that point. I am VERY handy and was a general contractor at one time but don't know anything at all about sewage pumps. My questions then are as follows:

Are sewage pumps generaly durable?
Are sewage pumps reasonable to operate?
How bad does the gravity option installation have to hurt before going to a sewage pump?
What is a good sewage pump?
Is pumping 3 or 4 feet a big deal for a sewage pump?
what maintenance is required for a sewage pump?
What else can you tel me about a sewage pump or what questions am I not asking?

You could install a lift station and pump it as far as you need...

Lift station?

I'm not familiar with the term lift station. My plan was to gravity feed to some sort of tank at the house and then lift 3' and gravity feed into the existing plumbing. Is that a lift station?

You can install the pump and tank at the shop and pump it to the gravity drain.

John