The Living Is (Mostly) Easy for the Residents of Three California ADUs

Mary Kawar never planned to leave the home she’d owned for 15 years. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area community of El Cerrito, it boasted a lifetime’s worth of treasures, from antique furniture and souvenirs collected on her travels to photos of her children and grandchildren. But during the pandemic, Mary’s daughter, Jennifer, asked if she would consider moving in with her. Mary, now 88 and semi-retired from her career as an occupational therapist, liked the idea.

"I loved my house and had no intentions of leaving it until I left the planet, but it was more than I needed," she says. "And Jennifer wanted me closer if or when I needed additional support."

For her part, Jennifer had never thought about building an accessory dwelling unit (ADU), but she’d just purchased a home in Berkeley with a backyard art studio that she figured could be converted into a standalone apartment for her mom. "I thought it would be easy and relatively inexpensive because it already had plumbing, electrical, and heat," Jennifer recalls. "The lie I told myself was that it was basically an ADU—it just needed a few tweaks," she adds with a laugh.

Those "tweaks" snowballed into a major renovation, but after eight months or so, Mary was able to move into the space.

Downsizing from a 2,000-square-foot house to the 360-square-foot ADU went surprisingly smoothly, in part because Mary was willing to sacrifice size for the comfort of having family nearby. "When people hear I’m in such a small space, they say they could never do it," she says. "But it’s a unique design, with high ceilings and lots of windows. I have a regular oven and a full-size fridge as well as room for my coffeemaker and Vitamix."

One space-saving move was outfitting the living area with a queen-size wall bed and convertible coffee/dining table from Clei, both purchased at Resource Furniture in San Francisco. Still, she misses having a bathtub, and she’s trying to find a spot for her exercise equipment and the tools she uses for hobbies like silversmithing. But it’s a small price to pay for the convenience of tiny home living, she says. "I take one or two international trips a year. Now I can just turn the key and leave."

Architect Brian Friel and therapist Melissa Virostko took a different path to multigenerational living at their ADU in Santa Cruz. The couple had lived intermittently with Melissa’s mother, but when they found themselves priced out of the area’s expensive housing market, she suggested they redo the garage-turned-studio behind her own home.

Local zoning restrictions at the time limited them to a building measuring no more than 10 percent of the lot size, so Brian, cofounder of the multidisciplinary design firm Young America Creative, came up with a plan for a 600-square-foot ADU. The program is surprisingly well-rounded with a main-floor living/dining room, galley kitchen, primary bedroom, a bathroom, and a lofted sleeping area.

When the couple moved in, their daughter was about one, and their son, now 4, wasn’t yet born. "We didn’t have much stuff, and I think we had a pretty good handle on storage needs," Brian says. "Now that we have two kids, that’s an area we’re constantly battling with. But it also requires us to keep our consumption of material things in check. We’re mindful of what we accumulate, because as soon as the house starts filling up with belongings, it starts to feel small."

Sharing a single bathroom hasn’t yet proved to be untenable, but, as Brian notes wryly, "The kids don’t spend a lot of time in the bathroom yet." Even so, the couple is glad to have a double-sink vanity along with radiant floor heating. "For a high-use bathroom like ours, the floor was a spendy thing with a huge impact," says Brian.

The home’s skylights and large windows represent another smart, albeit pricy, design move that make the spaces feel airy. "Five skylights sounds excessive, but they really enhance the quality of daylight here," he adds.

Brian and Melissa love how the outdoor space extends their ADU’s living area, but say that it’s also nice how it connects them with Melissa’s mother, which has been invaluable. "We have a really good dynamic," Brian says. "And it’s a dream for her to be such a big part of her grandkids’ lives. Our initial plan was that we would swap houses with her when we outgrow our place, but we feel we have a few years left to live here."

After renting a large industrial loft near downtown L.A., Adam J. Cooper was looking for something quieter when he found a backyard ADU in Los Angeles’s El Sereno neighborhood. The ground-floor unit, designed by architect Max Kuo, cofounder of AllThatIsSolid, clocks in at a roomy 900 square feet.

A DJ, producer, and designer, Adam has lived on his own there since 2021. "I have a spa-like bedroom with a soaking tub, a second bedroom that I use as my office and two bathrooms. The people who designed this are creative, world-class architects. The materials, the layout, and the natural light here, the fixtures and windows—I’m super grateful to have a space like this in a city like L.A."

Behind his unit he keeps a grill and a dining table, while just in front he has room to mix paints for his annual Caribbean-themed Junkyard Jouvert event, which the L.A. Weekly dubbed one of the city’s best parties.

Adam has no doubt that his rent would be astronomical if the ADU were anywhere west of downtown, but the neighborhood offers something more. "I was born in Trinidad and Tobago and grew up in Venezuela and New York City. It’s very important to me to remain close to immigrant communities. That’s the culture here on this side of Los Angeles, and it feels good."

Though ADUs have helped to increase density in competitive rental markets like L.A.’s, Adam has found that ADU owners sometimes lack experience dealing with tenants.

"ADUs are typically family-owned, so the quickness and responsiveness that you might be accustomed to in a new high-rise or a big apartment building isn’t always there," Adam says. "When you’re living on a single-family lot, the folks responsible for the property haven’t necessarily managed multiple tenants. It can be harder to get that same attention and care from your landlords to get things done."

Still, he says he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. "Given the nature of my work, it’s healthy for me to be able to turn off and come back to a place that’s quiet. I can step outside to my backyard or step into the front yard and not run into anyone that might know me from my events. It’s a price I’m willing to pay for my mental health."

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