ADU Builder North of Montana, Santa Monica

What a 50 by 150 Foot Lot Can Hold North of Montana

The typical parcel here runs 50 feet wide and 150 feet deep. With a family home in the front half, the rear half often has a garage, a pool or a long lawn, and still plenty of ground left over. That is enough for a two-story, two-bedroom detached ADU at the back, set four feet off the side and rear lines, with a real garden between the two buildings.

Santa Monica's local cap of 1,200 square feet for units with two or more bedrooms is most useful in this neighborhood. On a smaller lot, a unit that size crowds everything else. Here, it can sit comfortably behind the house as a true second home for adult children, a parent, or a long-term tenant.

Adding More Than One ADU on R1 Parcels

This part of the city is zoned R1, and that matters. Any single-unit lot in Santa Monica may combine a converted ADU, a junior ADU and a detached ADU. R1 lots get one more: an extra attached or detached unit, on the condition that a deed restriction is recorded against the property through City Planning.

Few neighborhoods have the ground to use that allowance. North of Montana often does. An owner might convert the existing garage into a studio, carve a JADU from a guest suite inside the house, and build a new cottage at the rear. Planning the whole site at once, even if the units are built years apart, keeps the utility runs and paths from tripping over each other.

• Converted ADU from a garage or accessory building
• Junior ADU inside the main house
• New detached ADU at the rear
• One more unit on R1 lots, with a deed restriction

Historic Homes and ADUs North of Montana

The neighborhood holds a number of historically significant houses, from early Spanish and Monterey revival homes to mid-century designs. Owners often ask whether that status blocks an ADU. The city's answer is narrow: extra ADU standards reach a property only when it appears on the California Register of Historical Resources. Fame on the block, age or a well-known architect do not, on their own, change the rules.

Even without a listing, many owners want the new unit to respect the main house. We match roof pitch, window proportions and materials where it helps, and keep the ADU subordinate in scale. Because approval is ministerial, those are choices you make rather than conditions a board imposes.

Trees, Pools and Privacy on Larger Santa Monica Lots

Big lots tend to come with big trees, pools and mature hedges. Each one constrains where an ADU can go. Roots affect foundation and trench routes, and a pool may limit how close the cottage can sit. We map these in the first site review so the unit lands where it disturbs the least.

Privacy runs both ways. Neighbors' second-story windows often look into deep rear yards. A two-story ADU here should keep its upper glass facing your own garden, with clerestory windows on the sides. Landscaping planned with the ADU, not after it, does a lot of the screening work.

ADU Condominiums and Long-Term Value

North of Montana is among the most expensive residential areas on the Westside, and that changes the math on an ADU. Santa Monica's condominium ordinance in Municipal Code Section 9.31.026 allows an ADU to be sold separately from the main house. Some owners here design with that future in mind, with separate meters, a separate path and a clean division of the yard.

Others never intend to sell and simply want family close by. In either case, a well-built unit on a lot of this size tends to be a long-term asset, and the design should reflect the quality of the main house.