In 2013, Niki Weber and J.P. Guiseppi were unceremoniously booted from their Venice, California, apartment—which, to add insult to injury, they had done work to—with hardly a month’s notice. Suddenly, they were thrust into a frenzied search for a new home. Niki, the COO of non-profit Regarding Her, and J.P., a creative director at Google, armed their realtor with a fastidious brief that positioned ample land and access to nature at the top of the list. As luck would have it, they purchased the first place they viewed, a single-family home in Silver Lake.

Their new property overlooked the L.A. skyline and had a little more than a half acre, which Niki and J.P. posit is on the larger end for the neighborhood. As nature lovers and avid gardeners, they loved the generous backyard for both its wildlife and future potential. Niki learned about ADUs in 2015—a year before California legalized the practice—and soon after the couple began dreaming up plans to convert the space behind their home into a rental property.

After years of living in leased apartments and with the memory of being burned by their former landlord still fresh in mind, Niki and J.P. were determined to create the best rental experience they could by emphasizing a connection with the outdoors. J.P. says he was actually reading Dwell when he came across Cover—a Los Angeles–based start-up specializing in prefab backyard homes. He liked how the company’s website made it easy to check if their property was eligible for building. After an on-site drone survey, the Cover team presented the couple with several layout options.

Roughly 60 hummingbirds circle the property, say the couple, which Niki had registered as a certified wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.
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Out of the schemes presented to them, Niki and J.P. went with the largest, a 720-square-foot two-bed, two-bath with a full kitchen. A wraparound porch and floor-to-ceiling windows overlook downtown L.A. “If we were going to rent it, we wanted to make it a place we’d love to live in,” says Niki. “It wasn’t about what’s the cheapest thing.” They also installed cisterns, which allowed them to landscape a previously inaccessible area. The changes have helped welcome more owls, rabbits, and other critters to the backyard, and today, the property is like a secluded nature refuge in the heart of Silver Lake, they say.

Preserving the property’s natural habitat and fostering a healthy ecosystem was always a priority for the couple. Niki registered the plot with the National Wildlife Federation as a certified wildlife habitat, a designation given to outdoor spaces that meet the non-profit’s food, water, shelter, nesting, and sustainability requirements aimed at restoring natural resources for wildlife. The couple chose a reinforced roof for the ADU so they can eventually plant it with flora to make it a green space, too.

“If we were going to rent it, we wanted to make it a place we’d love to live in.”
—Niki Weber, owner

The couple chose wood cladding for the exterior. They were wooed by its organic aesthetic, they say, which has already taken on new character: “It gets a lot of direct sunlight, so within about six months it was already aging and getting this really nice worn and weathered patina,” J.P. says.

He and Niki say they don’t have any regrets about the build, but that if they had the chance to do it again, they’d include more storage. “There’s nothing worse than having to store your luggage in the shower,” Niki says. Luckily it hasn’t come to that: Cover returned to add waterproof, lockable storage units on part of the deck that’s hidden out of view.

Niki and J.P. advise anyone embarking on a similar project to assume it will take double the time to complete and more funds than you think you’ll need—hard earned wisdom they culled through experience (and episodes of Grand Designs.) “It was a tricky feat of engineering to get a sizable apartment built on this hillside,” J.P. says. “It did blow the original budget up.” The actual install took fewer than six months and was completed in January 2023, but the entire process took a little more than two years, since Cover was navigating permit and site work in the midst of Covid.

In October 2023, J.P. and Niki’s first full-time tenant arrived. Complete with separate entries and addresses, both households feel like they have their own space. Not that they plan on making any sudden moves, but the couple does like that the ADU could be an office, should they decide to change things up. “The scheme gives us a lot of options and flexibility,” J.P. says. “Who knows what the future holds? We like the opportunity to build something that we could use in various ways.”

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