Joshua Leibner and Katherine Henninger consider themselves big fans of living below their means.
“Josh will drive across town to use a Groupon,” says Henninger, a college English professor at Louisiana State University. “Art is the only thing he doesn’t mind spending money on.”
So when the couple decided to add an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, next to their home in Northeast Los Angeles, the price tag stunned them.
Looking back, Leibner admits they were naive. “We thought it would cost about $300,000,” he says. “It ended up costing closer to $600,000. If we had known it would cost that much, we would not have gone through with it.”
Vaulted ceilings and clerestory windows make the 400-square-foot studio feel open and airy.
Joshua Leibner and Katherine Henninger and their son Marlowe Leibner with the Los Angeles skyline behind them.
The couple looked into adding an ADU seven years after buying their 1,300-square-foot Midcentury Modern home for $615,000 in 2011.
“We were so fortunate to be able to do that,” Henninger says of the 1950 home, which features a striking semicircular floor plan similar to a John Lautner design. “But then again the house had been on the market for 10 months.”
They liked the idea of an ADU because it would offer flexibility, whether for them, their family or a tenant, Leibner says. “We wanted to do something that would give us a place to be as well as a place that other people could be. And ideally, it would be an artistic experience as well as a comfortable place to live.”
The couple’s three-bedroom home sits on a dramatic ridgeline, with Eagle Rock on one side and Highland Park on the other. This left them with few options, so the only place they could build an ADU was where their two-car detached garage stood.
A sleeping loft above the bathroom.
The large central space has views to the north and south, and the windows are strategically placed to create a soothing cross-breeze.
When the couple saw the work of architects Brennan Buck and David Freeland of FreelandBuck at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., they reached out to them in 2018 to design an ADU for their family, including their son Marlowe, now 15. Seeing the architects’ work in a gallery helped them, as Henninger puts it, “appreciate them as artists,” which was exactly what they wanted for an accessory dwelling unit to complement their home.
Because the existing house has a semicircular floor plan, the architects thought a typical square structure would not suit the property. Instead, they created a vertical studio on a slab above the garage, with a pitched roof that, as Freeland says, “floats over the shared space between the two homes.”
Two tall adjoining trapezoidal forms help define the living areas inside. The architects also added terraced decks connecting the two houses, giving the family space to dine, barbecue and garden.
Windows allow for cross ventilation.
The studio is just 400 square feet, but it features several niches that define the living spaces, including a kitchenette, sleeping loft, living room and bathroom. The large central space has views to the north and south, and the windows are strategically placed to create a soothing cross-breeze on hot Los Angeles days. A table and futon are sized so the space can work as a small office, dining room or living room.
“It seems small, but the high ceilings make the place feel so much bigger,” Leibner says. “The architects made it something incredibly special, and it’s really quite an aesthetic experience to be in there.”
The couple’s artwork, featuring pieces by “Missionary” Mary L. Proctor, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Romero, make the ADU their own. A one-of-a-kind pendant light made from zip ties, which they picked up in Cambodia for $100 while working for a nongovernmental organization two decades ago, adds further drama in the space.
“It was in the garage forever,” Henninger says with a laugh. “It’s almost like we had to build a place just to have a place to put that.”
A fireplace in the main home blocks views of the ADU.
A thin, translucent band of windows runs along all four exterior walls, highlighting the roof’s shape. “When you’re inside, the band of light diffuses the light inside. And at night, it glows, and you get the sense of the floating planes of the roof,” Freeland says.
Although the houses are close and connected by the deck, their orientation gives each one privacy. “The original house is similarly oriented, so when you’re inside, the fireplace facing west hides the ADU,” Leibner says. “You can’t really see the ADU from inside the house. The same is true for the ADU. You can’t see inside our house from the house or deck.”
The project ended up costing much more than the couple expected, largely because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We started designing with FreelandBuck before the pandemic,” Leibner says. During the pandemic, supply chain problems sent window and lumber prices soaring. Accessing the site was also challenging.
The kitchenette includes a two-burner induction range-top, toaster oven and refrigerator.
Colorful tiles the couple found in New Zealand brighten the shower. “I carried them around for 25 years, and then, finally, we had something to do with them,” says Henninger.
When restaurants shut down during the pandemic, they talked to a commercial contractor who said he could finish the project in three months for $315,000. “We were scandalized,” Leibner says. “That was so expensive. We thought, ‘How are we gonna do this?’” In the end, they hired contractor David Bond after prices had gone up and paid him about $350,000.
For the record:
4:28 p.m. Aug. 12, 2026A previous version of this story incorrectly identified contractor David Bond as a commercial contractor who provided the couple with an initial bid on their ADU.
Also, the couple decided to subcontract a few projects and do some of the work themselves, like tiling the kitchen and bathroom and handling finishes. When their garage needed to be demolished and redone, they handled it as well, posting, “Free garage and the concrete it sits on,” on Craigslist and Buy Nothing groups.
“People came and took the old-growth redwood siding, roof timbers and window. Someone was building an artist studio in the desert — studs. Someone was building a deck — light fixtures, shelving, wiring and bent garage door for scrap metal,” Henninger says. “I did hire a crew to take what little remained down, and David Bond finally had to break up the concrete. We were really happy that almost nothing besides concrete had to go to the dump.”
The move impressed the architects who viewed it as an interesting way to think about community and its connection to the neighborhood. “The build is something that both the homeowners and community are engaged in,” Buck says.
Even the shower has a view overlooking Los Angeles.
Due to family health issues in Virginia, the couple is renting their home and the ADU while they care for relatives during the school year. Leibner, a screenwriter and high school English teacher, and Henninger hope this will be their last year on the East Coast, where they are originally from.
“This is our home,” Henninger says. “We have spent a lot of time and money and excitement and love in making it the place where we want to be.”
Adds Leibner: “One of the positive things about adding the ADU is that we have a source of income to help pay for the darned thing.”
