When the pandemic prevented Claudia Buchanan and her family from spending time with her mother, Alice Marozas, they all decided it was time to rethink the way they live. Lockdowns had left Alice feeling isolated, lonely, and weary from the upkeep that her five-bedroom house in Rancho Mirage required. So Claudia, her husband, Chris, and their two sons sat down with her to come up with a plan.

“We spent a lot of time discussing possible new living arrangements, including my mother moving into our home, but she values her privacy, space, and independence,” Claudia says. The family also considered senior living communities. “But after the isolation of the pandemic, we wanted to be together,” she adds. “My mom loved the idea of having her own space close to us—it seemed like the perfect solution.”

In thinking about a close-but-separate small home for her mom, Claudia remembered seeing an article about a prefabricated backyard accessory dwelling unit (ADU) designed by Cover and decided to contact the Los Angeles firm. “Their process seemed pretty stress-free and I loved the aesthetic, so I set up a meeting through their website,” she says. Claudia, Chris, and Alice met with cofounder and CEO Alexis Rivas, cofounder and president Jemuel Joseph, and technical advisor Rico Jaeggi to discuss adding one of the company’s units to the backyard of Claudia and Chris’s Brentwood home.

During the meeting, Rivas, Joseph, and Jaeggi explained Cover’s design-build process, emphasizing flexibility, speed, and sustainability. By mapping out with precision a home’s design for any given lot, says Rivas, the company can keep materials waste to a minimum and deliver a complete home within a month from the date of a customer’s inquiry. “We want to do better, so we’re bringing precision and predictability to the building process,” he adds.

Cover’s promise of expediency was important to Claudia, Chris, and Alice, but so was a space that felt airy and expansive. “Alice was downsizing, so a major request was for the ADU to function like a bigger space,” Rivas remembers. Claudia and Chris also wanted to maintain their garage and the yard’s existing fruit trees. Once the family learned that Cover would be able to tailor a 2-bedroom ADU to suit their needs without making adjustments to the backyard, they were ready to pull the trigger.

With ideas of spaciousness in mind, Cover created an open-plan kitchen, living, and dining area to give Alice’s ADU a voluminous feel. They designed an island with a sink, a pantry, and plenty of storage for the kitchen, which features a bright white backsplash, counters, and cabinetry. “For maximum functionality, each room features built-in storage,” says Rivas. “The white finishing blends them with the walls.” To link the ADU with the yard and make it feel that much bigger and brighter, the open living area opens to a sizable deck while three of the facades include floor-to-ceiling windows for maximal light. “The property has large hedges surrounding it in the zoning setbacks,” Rivas says. “These kinds of spaces are often neglected, but we made the windows face the hedges, bringing the outdoors in while maintaining privacy.”

The deck, which is made from thermally treated ash, will patina and become a silvery tone that will lend depth and interest to the white fiber cement panels of the ADU’s exterior siding. “We chose fiber cement and ash for their durability and timelessness,” Rivas says.

But Claudia, Chris, and Alice aren’t waiting for the deck to patina—they’re enjoying the ADU now. “A tall hedge, a vegetable garden, and a chicken coop separate the ADU from the main house,” Claudia says. “We like the separation because it gives the feeling of privacy, but we do quite a bit of back-and-forth between our houses.” In the mornings, Claudia and Alice have coffee on the deck while Chris toils in the vegetable garden. And in the afternoons after school, Claudia and Chris’s younger son, Wilson, head’s straight to grandma’s house. “He usually has a snack and downloads his day,” Claudia says. “My mom loves that.” On some nights, Alice joins her family for dinner. On others, she prefers to just stay home.

More from Cover:

A $185 Prefab Guesthouse Pops Up on a Tricky Hollywood Hillside

A Writer’s Prefab Retreat Sits Lightly Upon the Land in Joshua Tree

A Designer’s $210K Prefab ADU Captures the Allure of California Living

Project Credits:

Design and Construction: Cover / @CoverBuild