In 2010, after renting in northeast L.A. for several years and getting outbid on several houses, artist Antonio Adriano Puleo toured a two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in Glassell Park the same day it was listed. It wasn’t large, but that didn’t matter. It was affordable, had a two-car garage that could be converted into a studio, and it sat on a quiet hillside street with views of the San Gabriel and Verdugo Mountains.

“I’m a working artist, so the mere act of owning or buying a house was a bit of a feat,” Antonio says. “I didn’t envision changing it per se, but I knew there was potential for growth.”

Soon after the sale was finalized, he set to work updating the kitchen and bathroom and converting the freestanding garage into an airy studio where he could work on his paintings and sculptures. A few years passed. Wanting to make the most of the oddly shaped, diminutive rear yard, he reached out to architectural designer Ben Warwas, a friend from his undergrad days at MassArt in Boston. After much discussion, and drawing on his experience making skateboard ramps, Warwas designed and built a multilevel wood deck in the upper corner of the yard.

When Antonio decided to expand his studio and add a second bathroom a few years later, he again called upon Warwas, who founded the Los Angeles firm Byben. “The priority for me was maximizing what was available and reconfiguring it in a way that was cleaner and more efficient,” Antonio says. “Ben understands space and is great with materials.”

Sizing up the tiny front porch and the awkward circulation throughout, Warwas immediately saw opportunities to make the property function better. “I told Antonio we could do a lot more with the house,” the designer recalls. “For one thing, there was all this space in the living room that wasn’t being used.”

$24,375 Foundation	$52,360 Structural	$44,725 Wall Finishes
$9,175 Flooring	$38,372 Roofing	$9,074 Electrical
$10,415 Plumbing	$8,385 HVAC	$10,100 Cabinetry
$1,100 Kitchen/Bath Fixtures	$2,700 Tiles	$28,800 Doors
$300 Door Hardware	$13,700 Windows & Skylights	$650 Lighting
$2,100 Mirror & Shower Glass	$440 Appliances	$4,800 Deck
$3,800 Hardscape	$3,756 Permitting	$5,425 Engineering
$32,532 Design Fee	$13,335 Demolition
Grand Total: $320,419

Among his suggestions: remove the large fireplace and extend the living room rearward for improved access to the backyard, add a second door to the kitchen, and tuck a cozy sleeping loft beneath the bumped-up roof.

As for the studio, Warwas drew up a plan to expand the existing garage and laundry room structure to accommodate an ADU with a bathroom and kitchen/dining/work area, and he connected the addition to the deck that runs along the rear facade. “There’s now an indoor/outdoor flow that makes the space feel bigger,” Warwas explains.

Antonio admits that losing the fireplace was a tough sell initially—“I was born and raised on the East Coast, and fireplaces are a major part of houses there,” he says—but he embraced the logic of Warwas’s plan.

And though the scope of that plan snowballed from a studio expansion and bathroom addition, resulting in a final price tag of $320,419, Antonio says he can’t imagine doing it any other way. “Once you crack open the egg, you see what’s inside and what’s possible. And suddenly, you’re attached to all these concepts,” he says.

“Renovating the studio involved connecting the studio to the house,” Antonio adds. “It wasn’t possible to do one without the other because it was all connected. For instance, the last thing we did was the deck, and the deck unifies the space in the back. Without it, I’d just have this giant hole in the backyard.”

But both Warwas and Antonio optimized savings wherever possible. Antonio created many of the textiles himself, and he designed the console table and bench in the living room. Both pieces were built by James Melinat, a good friend and a skilled finish carpenter and furniture maker who also did all the millwork and cabinetry. “There are a lot of unique handmade pieces in the house,” Antonio says. “I’m very fortunate to have very talented friends. I buy some pieces, trade for others.”

For his part, Warwas estimates he saved $20,000 to $30,000 by situating the big slider in the living room without the need for a moment frame. And he suggested less expensive ceramic tile for the studio shower instead of the cement tile Antonio originally requested.

One of the renovation’s transformative moments arose on a visit during construction, when Warwas and Antonio decided to raise the living room ceiling and visually define it with a sculptural curve—one of Warwas’s favorite shapes.

“The ceiling just brought the whole project together, because it resulted in a whole new facade in the back,” he says. “It’s a fairly inexpensive facade, just stucco, but from the ‘before’ house to the ‘after’ house, it’s a total transformation. And even though we didn’t add a tremendous amount of space, that ceiling height alone is just surreal.”

Related Reading:

A Blue ADU With Cloud-Like Doors Represents the Los Angeles Sky

An Uninspired L.A. Garage Gets Turned Into a Surrealist ADU

They Built an $830K ADU With Attitude on a Steep Silver Lake Hillside

Project Credits:

Architectural Designer: Byben / @ben_warwas

Builder: CJD Builders

Structural Engineer: Craig Phillips Engineering & Design

Cabinetry: James Melinat, Reigns Studio / @reignsstudio