Projects Wall Street Journal Coverage
Accessory dwelling units are having a moment, as homeowners build miniature houses to use just for themselves
Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal article by Amy Gamerman, July 10, 2024
Photography by Louise Palmberg
The latest luxury home trend isn’t a cold plunge, a wine cave or a massage room; it is a miniature house, designed to complement your big one. Picture the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s retreat on the grounds of Versailles—a bite-sized but exquisite home away from home that offers a respite from the more onerous aspects of homeownership, like extensive upkeep and maintenance, or weekend guests.
Lindal Cedar Homes, which designs upscale kit homes and manufactures the materials to build them, has seen a surge in demand for its ADU post-and-beam kits in the last decade.
There are many practical reasons why a homeowner might want to build an accessory dwelling: to house aging parents or adult offspring, or as an income-generating rental property. But some are designing them just for themselves.
Though it may be tiny, the accessory dwelling unit is built to code and set on a solid foundation, with dedicated spaces for living and sleeping, a fully plumbed bathroom and kitchen, and appliances like a washer-dryer.
The ADU fad started on the West Coast, where it continues to gain steam. California, Oregon and Washington have made it easier for homeowners to add a second dwelling by removing barriers like mandatory review processes and requirements that it have its own parking space or garage. In cities like Seattle and San Francisco, where housing stock is in short supply, ADUs are seen as a cost-effective way to add more homes while containing urban sprawl.
Although there’s little data on ADU construction nationwide, California homeowners applied for over 31,000 ADU permits last year, up from about 7,000 in 2018, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development. A 2023 analysis by John Burns Research & Consulting found that the trend is spreading eastward, as cities such as Denver and Miami adopt ADU-friendly policies.
Lindal Cedar Homes, which designs upscale kit homes and manufactures the materials to build them, has seen a surge in demand for its ADU post-and-beam kits in the last decade, according to the company’s marketing director, Josefin Kannin. “More and more cities are allowing people to build these,” she said.
In 2015, the couple decided to create a retreat for Conrad where he could work in peaceful seclusion, away from their noisy schnauzers.
Hy Conrad, a mystery writer and television producer whose credits include the series “Monk,” splits the year between a three-bedroom home in Key West, Fla., and Vermont, where he and his husband, Jeff Johnson, own a rambling 1910 stone hunting lodge on the Massachusetts border. In 2015, the couple decided to create a retreat for Conrad at the summit of their Vermont property—a place where he could work in peaceful seclusion, away from their noisy schnauzers.
One cottage contains a serene bedroom, a bathroom and a writing desk set before a floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the forest canopy and mountains; it’s designed for writing.
“I like being totally private,” said Conrad, 74. “I am a creature of habit, and I don’t have any hobbies, so sitting down and writing is it.”
Working with Lindal Cedar Homes, the couple designed not one but two 275-square-foot cottages, connected by a patio, that split the features and functions of a classic ADU in half. One cottage contains a serene bedroom, a bathroom and a writing desk set before a floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the forest canopy and mountains; it’s designed for writing. The second, set at a slight angle just below it, has a bright red kitchen and a cozy living room. It’s for not writing.
“There’s too much temptation if your kitchen’s right next to you.”
“There’s too much temptation if your kitchen’s right next to you. Like, ‘Oh I’ll make a cup of coffee’ or ‘I’ll have a snack.’ That’s the reason it was separated,” said Johnson, 72, who used to work in advertising but now devotes much of his time to the Williamstown Theater Festival, where he is a longtime board member.
After the couple added an office to their main house in 2019, they decided to share their cottages with visiting Williamstown playwrights in the summer. “There’s a word-of-mouth among playwrights — ‘If you’re up there, you have to stay in the cottages,’” said Conrad, who counts Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winners among their guests. “It’s become a status thing.”
Unsurprisingly, many are reluctant to leave.
“We’ve had playwrights who arrive on a Sunday and go grocery shopping, and we will not see them leave those two cottages for the entire week,” said Johnson. “I hope they go outside and walk in the woods.”
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