Naturally, when landscape architect Connie Migliazzo moved into her new Southwest Portland home, her first project was in the yard. Swaths of grass surrounded the residence, with a pool at the back cut into a swank kidney shape that reflected the property’s 1953 origins. Its concrete deck was crumbling, so Connie and her husband, Jonathan Kadish, a data scientist, got to work swapping it out for one made of ipe wood.

“We built it over the course of a year and a half while our house was under construction because we wanted to be able to use the pool sooner than we were going to be living in the house,” says Connie. “We spent a lot of our weekends building this pool deck. It took us a long time, but it was because we got a bid for it for $50,000 and we were like, nope, we’ll do it ourselves.”

Connie and her husband, Jonathan Kadish, a data scientist, were living in the Bay Area when they bought the house in 2017, to be closer to Jonathan’s family; the pool deck was just one part of a larger renovation plan. Immediately after buying the home, they reached out to friends and architects Cam Helland and Melissa Schwegmann, both whom Connie had met in 2013 when they were all at separate design firms that shared an office space above a Blue Bottle coffee in San Francisco. “They were some of the first people I met in the city, we sat ten feet from each other,” says Connie.

By the time Connie and Jonathan bought the Portland house four years later, all of them had ventured out on their own, with Helland and Schwegmann at Helland Architecture, and Connie starting her landscape architecture firm, Prato. “We went to them and were, like, ‘Do your magic,’” says Connie. Adds Schwegmann: “Our design aesthetics really aligned. It was a really easy process to design together.”

Editor’s note: Figures are for ADU only.

$12,091 Site Work	$16,000 Foundation	$40,594.18 Structural
$20,076.05 Wall Finishes	$1,777.80 Flooring	$6,238.28 Roofing
$435 Hardware/Accessories	$8,740.85 Electrical	$12,803.57 Plumbing
$18,090.15 HVAC Equipment	$4,800 Landscaping	$4,267.50 Kitchen & Bath Fixtures
$3,400 Lighting	$7,500 Cabinetry	$15,016.55 Countertops
$6,175.76 Appliances	$10,447.64 Windows & Glazing	$8,548.07 Doors
$21,500 Millwork	$3,550.12 Tilework	$3,350 Metalwork
$6,321 Furnishings & Decor	$30,000 Soft Costs (Permitting, inspection, architecture and engineering fees)
Grand Total: $261,723.52

Schwegmann and Helland started with the main house, which, although built in 1953, was not a great example from the era by any stretch of the imagination. “I don’t want to romanticize the history of the house too much because it was not well constructed and it wasn’t a midcentury gem,” says Connie. “Once we started taking things off and seeing how shoddy the construction was, it was a snowball effect of things that needed to be fixed.”

The couple addressed the structural problems, updating the roof, electrical, plumbing, and conducting asbestos remediation in the basement, while Schwegmann and Helland massaged the layout. They essentially kept the rooms in place, but expanded the size of the kitchen and added a new sunken sunroom with oversized sliding glass doors that open to the backyard, as well as second level above the garage with a primary bedroom suite.

“My only thought was to open up the house to the backyard and bring in a ton of light, because I knew Connie would do something with the yard that would make it beautiful,” says Schwegmann. They brought in strips of skylights in the kitchen and new primary bedroom, as well as large picture windows to capture views of the pool and garden. The interior material palette of white oak, concrete, and white walls and tile is intentionally subdued, says Schwegmann. “I wanted the house to feel Zen,” says Connie.

plumbing fixtures are from Cal Faucets." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Joe Fletcher" photoUserId="6133430985087148032"/>

Unfortunately, any sense of calm was disrupted when, during the first phase of construction, a contractor they’d hired abruptly declared bankruptcy and left the state. While about 90 percent of the work was done, a few spots like cabinetry and flooring still needed to be addressed. The worst impact was that some finished work, like the staircases, had not been completed to code, so they did not pass inspection and had to be rebuilt.

Connie and Jonathan worked with the Construction Contractor’s Board to understand their options, and sought an arbitration settlement from the State of Oregon in order to collect from the contractor’s bond with the CCB. “We were only able to recover about half of what it cost to fix the issues he left us with and close out the project,” says Connie. “We were surprised by how challenging it was to collect from his bond—we spent months and lots of conversations with different people to get there, and that’s with some pro bono legal help from family friends.”

While the couple felt powerless with the departure of their contractor, they were able to finish the work in his absence, hiring subcontractors themselves and having Jonathan tackle built-in furniture in the primary. It’s designed as one open space with several zones, including a library, office, bedroom, bathroom, and closet, with cabinetry instead of walls creating distinction. Leaving the ceiling plane open spreads light and a sense of airiness through the primary, while the wood enclosures hide cost-effective Ikea inserts. The couple were able to move in by March 2020, just as the pandemic was starting and their first baby was born.

Along the way, the group marshaled money and energy for phase two, an ADU that doubles as a pool house. Connie terraced and planted the rest of the yard, but kept a cut-flower field on the ADU site in the intervening years, before beginning work on the project in 2024.

Now finished, at 641 square feet, with a 50-foot-long edge, the ADU nudges up nicely to the ipe pool deck. Its gable form is wrapped completely in a continuous cedar rain screen installed by the couple’s new contractor, McFadin Design-Build. “That horizontal line was very intentional,” says Helland, noting how the wood was laid out so as not to be broken by the top of windows or doors, and to seamlessly wrap from the exterior to the interior.

The cladding was a splurge—“There are easier ways to do a roof, walls, and wood siding,” says Helland—but this was the look the group wanted. There are no visible gutters, and when the 50-foot-length proved too expensive for an off-the-shelf option, the contractor custom-built integral gutters out of fiberglass that can be accessed by removing roof slats. “Our contractor was really wonderful in executing unique visions,” says Connie. “He used to be a boat builder.”

The ADU holds an office for Connie, and on the other side of a communal lounge facing the pool, guest quarters with a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchenette that the couple rent out short-term when they aren’t hosting. Its interiors match the main house in concrete and pale plywood, with built-in storage (done by Jonathan and the contractor) and seating positioned along the rooms’ perimeters. All of the windows, including a ribbon window running the length of the building and around corners, frame different perspectives of Connie’s ongoing work in the yard.

“It feels like you’re walking by a big painting,” says Helland of the view from inside. “We didn't need to bring in art, or colors, when the landscape feels as if it’s part of color palette and the space.”

More Budget Breakdown stories:

A Designer Builds Her First House for $659K—on a Fully Forested Portland Hillside

To Fill an ADU With Light, $55K Yellow Window Frames Were a Design Necessity

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Helland Architecture / @hellandarchitecture

Builder: McFadin Design-Build (for the ADU)

Structural Engineer: Framework Engineering

Landscape Design: Prato

Architecture & Design Support: Dalton Kaun

Also Appears In

Budget Breakdown: A $262K Pool House Puts the Finishing Touch on a Revived 1953 Portland Property