I was an only child,
and my mom and I
were living apart for 27 years.
And then my stepfather died.
I knew immediately
she couldn't stay in her apartment in New York City anymore by herself.
We have a teeny house and a big backyard.
And so we thought,
Aha! The garage. On this project, the most important thing was that Grandma
felt like she had the most luxurious home in this once drafty garage.
She's got this beautiful, sunny place that we're jealous of.
Now, Grandma’s got her glam garage.
Grandma is Glam-ma now.
My mom,
Karin, was born in 1939 in Germany.
When she moved from Germany to the U.S. and she found New York City,
she became a New Yorker like that.
I came here in 1960.
Yeah, I love that because you look so happy.
I was just looking forward to a new life. And I loved,
I love New York.
When I first got
here, I found jazz, and my daughter's father was working in a jazz
club. And she
lived quite a life.
I was so in love with her father,
but after two years, he actually left.
I really thought, Mm-mm.
But then there was a baby.
Well, I tell you, my daughter gave me a reason to live.
She was ...
I think I'm
getting teary now.
My mom raised me by herself.
She worked really hard to just
do whatever she could to take care of me.
Here you are. Yeah, I like that one, too.
It wasn't until my senior year when she met my stepfather, Billy,
and the two of them fell in love.
All right, shall we look at the one with Billy in it?
Yeah, that is my beloved.
So when DeMille
and I met and we moved to Los Angeles,
it didn't feel as hard to leave her. She had somebody there with her.
And now we have two wonderful children,
Moreau, who's 23, and Devon, who's 21.
And everything was fine.
We were living 3,000 miles apart.
And then Billy died.
And I just knew
she couldn't stay by herself.
I love my wife.
I want to take care of her and her mom, and it just wasn't,
there was no hesitation.
Our house is two-bedroom, one bath.
We knew that we were going to have to create more space
where there was no space.
And so we thought, Aha! The garage.
We have a garage,
maybe we can do something with that.
The garage, it was just a pile of junk.
We had everything from punching
bags, boxes, with an old crickety,
huge, heavy door.
Luckily,
we moved into our house 18 years ago
and our property value more than doubled since then.
So we knew that we could get a loan.
We got it at 110,000.
When we decided to go for it,
we had no idea what to do, but we did know that we had two
incredible neighbors named Pierre and Carmen.
I’m Pierre De Angelis.
I'm Carmen Suero, and we are architects
and we're also friends and neighbors of Monique and DeMille’s.
Hey. Hi, guys.
How are you? Good to see you guys.
Come on in.
It's been a while.
When we spoke
with Carmen and Pierre, we basically told them we knew that
we wanted to stay within the four walls of the garage because of zoning.
So the plans ...
This is where your house is, and that's where the garage door was.
So the square footage of the garage was approximately 300 square feet.
And for us, really, it was,
“What does she want? What does she need?”
We told them what was most important was that there was good light,
that there was a bathroom.
She does not like to cook, so there didn't have to be a full kitchen.
And, maybe most importantly, a space for her records.
One of the challenges with an ADU
in an existing garage is to make sure that the space doesn't feel small
at the end of it. The front door,
what we did was, instead of having it off the street,
we wanted to kind of make it
a little bit more protected so that you entered from the yard.
In a way, what we're really doing is
ignoring that this was a garage and saying,
“How do we make the most out of what's there?”
We started construction in June of 2020.
We found out that there was an issue with the foundation.
So they had to jackhammer it and pour a whole new foundation.
That was more money.
We were a little freaked out, but we knew we have to do
what we need to do.
Here it is.
Grandma's glam garage.
On the day that it was move-in ready,
she just couldn't even believe it.
It was overwhelming.
I was so shocked.
And it was all, Monique had done
all the furniture, everything that you see here.
I mean I didn't have to do anything.
You have your comfy bed with your cozy cover.
I can't imagine any space that could be better, right?
Yeah, it's perfect.
So light and so airy, right?
Yeah.
All the windows and the doors.
We are jealous
that she has this bright, shiny new space with a skylight
that has tile that matches the tile in the kitchen.
Can you believe this is 295
square feet?
Yeah, it sounds like a closet, but this is perfect.
Oh, I love the bookshelf.
It really captures, you know, both her past and the present, you know,
because she's got her books,
her records and her photographs.
I knew those records are part of her story,
and she needed her story with her
in this brand new place.
So the bathroom, to me, I'm like, really?
You can have a party in here.
This is one of those bars that can help you safely in the shower.
Like, this is so safe.
Pierre and Carmen
were really proactive in having our, my mom in a space where she was going to age
and making sure that it was a space that was good
for that.
We had 110 in the loan.
The actual expense at the end of the day
was maybe 125-ish.
Even though we blew through our budget,
it was all worth it at the end of the day.
And it's definitely increased the value of our property, our home.
My mother-in-law is paying a monthly rent,
she calls it,
and we use that to pay the loan payment.
We planted a tree with
my stepfather's ashes at the roots.
It's wonderful because he's here with us, too.
I love New York to this day, except I love L.A.
almost as much.
Watching my mom interact with my kids has been really beautiful.
She just, like she, her eyes light up when she sees them.
So having my mom with me, she's 84,
she's incredible.
She's an incredible human.
Having her here, kind of like
as the bookend of her life, you know that it's,
I think she would probably say
her life started with me and now she's ending it with me.
So, yeah, it's so powerful and so important.
So important to have her with me.
I have never felt better in my life
because I'm surrounded by love and beauty and
this is really my home, totally mine.
And I love it.
I'm still overwhelmed, and I'm so grateful.