East LA Two-Story ADU

ADU

Quick facts: New construction two-story ADU | 1,200 SF | 1 bed, 1 bath per floor | Unincorporated East LA County | [2021-2025]

A mom and her daughter found us through an old classmate of ours from East LA College. They had a large lot in East LA and one clear goal: live on the same property, each in a home of her own. The catch was the law. At the time, the ADU rules allowed one unit on this lot, not two.

So we designed one building that lives like two homes. The only way between the floors is an exterior stair, so each unit has its own front door and nothing shared inside. The daughter’s floor, 550 SF downstairs, holds a living room, a kitchen and dining area, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The mom’s floor, 650 SF upstairs, has its own bedroom and bathroom, with a wet bar in place of a second kitchen; that single detail is what kept the building one legal ADU. Vaulted ceilings and skylights keep both floors feeling bigger than their square footage, and off the upstairs balcony we cut an opening straight through the roof, so you can sit outside in the shade and still watch the sky. These clients gave us complete design control and trusted us with every one of those moves, which is rare, and it made this one of our favorite projects to design.

Unincorporated LA County reviews plans at its own pace, so approval took patience. The bigger test came during construction: the property sits within 300 feet of an old oil well, which requires methane mitigation, and the requirement had been missed somewhere in plan review. By then the slab was poured. The standard fix, a membrane under the slab plus a 2-inch topping slab, would have cost ceiling height and weeks of schedule. We found an epoxy slab coating instead, got the county to approve it, and the build kept moving.