FROM ‘SECRET PLACE’ TO SPACE SOLUTION
Luxe sheds offer backyard retreats that serve as chic workplaces, guest suites and more
About six years ago, Chelsea Hadley left her job as a fundraiser for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and started running a small arts foundation from her house.
In theory, the idea was a nobrainer — she had two school-age children; her husband, film scorer and hip-hop musician Justin Reinhardt, already worked from home; and the flexibility was seductive. Practically, she discovered one hitch: Her house, in a canyon in Los Angeles, was not designed for that kind of lifestyle.
“We live in a 1950s midcentury modern post-and-beam house, which is, like, very L.A.-feeling, but it’s one big, open space,” Hadley said. “So we realized really quickly that with him working at home and me working at home and having two young kids, I was never going to get any work done and neither was he.”
Adding a room would have blasted through their budget and changed their home’s footprint, but they did have an 8,360-squarefoot (777-square-metre) lot and a backyard — littered with outgrown toys — that needed updating. The answer to everything was a US$60,000 luxury shed by kitHAUS, a prefab maker that has created sleek spaces for clients, including comic actress Amy Poehler.
Backyard sheds long ago morphed from dusty storage shacks or scroungy domains of gardeners and grandpas to swoonable spaces that let people fulfil needs and fantasies for a fraction of what it would cost to trade up or remodel.
They are the heart of the yard and sometimes the home, serving as offices, meditation rooms, writing nooks, bars, saunas, guest suites or crafting cottages, and sometimes a combination of the above.
Deep down, the appeal of the backyard shed, and the many ways the space has been interpreted, can be explained by that primordial need for intimate, secluded snugness, said Debra Prinzing, author of Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways.
“It goes back to our visceral memories of having a little secret place,” Prinzing said. When she used to ask people about their dream sheds, the answers “were all over the map in terms of architecture.” But they all evoked the “excitement you had as a child, putting a blanket over a card table and climbing underneath. You had your own little space. I think that’s what everyone is going for.”
Perhaps nothing consecrates the status of sheds more than a reality TV show on the topic. He Shed She Shed, which U.S. cable network Fyi. tv launched in April 2016, pitted pairs of amateur shed designers with competing visions.
The popularity of the units is evidenced in the growth of shed companies. Business at ModernShed has increased 20 per cent per year for the past six years, said Tim Vack, general manager of the Seattle-based firm. A mix of factors is driving demand: Awful traffic in congested urban areas and the rise of flex policies means more people are choosing to work from home.
Construction and real estate costs mean it’s hard to move or remodel, he added. An unfinished Modern-Shed typically starts at US$18,500 to US$25,000 (not including delivery or installation; visit modern-shed.com for a dealer who can assist with Canadian orders). He estimated that a room addition would cost four to eight times that.
People with big villas aren’t his typical clients — it’s those that live in “tight but wealthy ” urban areas such as downtown San Francisco and Seattle.
Jeremy Nova, a co-founder of Studio Shed, outside Boulder, Colo., said there’s a key advantage to building small: The structure might not need to be permitted, depending on local building codes. “We’ve done installations in very small backyards,” Nova said. One yard in San Francisco was so tiny the builders had to carry panels in through the house.
Studio Shed has averaged yearover-year growth of almost 50 per cent since inception in 2008, Nova said. His sheds are most popular in California, where “you have a lot more acceptance of integrating indoor and outdoor living spaces, and part of that is the climate.”
The backyard shed as retreat is far from a North American concept — they’ve been a fixture in Great Britain for decades and they’re the crux of a social movement in Australia.
While they come in many styles and prices, from mass produced or customizable units in the low four figures to architect-designed showpieces, high-end sheds tend to use durable and ecologically responsible materials, and they have bespoke details that help them match the main house, such as custom paint or curated lighting. Adding a bathroom or kitchen can send costs up, in part because of permits.
Tom Sandonato, who co-founded kitHAUS in 2004, said coveted upgrades blend inside and outside: Outdoor kitchens or showers, hardwood floors that transition into decks, open air passages connecting enclosed spaces. His business has grown about five per cent annually in the past two years, he said.
Eric Enns, owner of Modern Spaces and Sheds, based in Northern California, is working on another concept that merges indoors and outdoors: A tree house shed in Santa Cruz. Enns said people — including himself — are increasingly wanting multipurpose sheds.
“I have four kids, two dogs and a cat, and I can’t get anything done in my house. It’s not even an option,” he said. “I have mine set up with a little Ikea desk back there, (and) we have a loft with a bed.” His kids use it for sleepovers. He uses it for work.
Clients of real estate startup Cover are also asking for hybrid spaces: A pool house/guest house, a sound editing room by day and a lounge after hours, said its cofounder, Alexis Rivas.
The company is trying something new: Clients answer 50 to 100 questions online, and an algorithm designs their space. Cover trims costs by automating manufacturing and design. Its units cost US$55,000 to US$400,000, including permits and installation, Rivas said.
Another innovator is Austinbased Sett Studio, which started selling flat-pack DIY kits in August. They start at US$6,800, not including tax and shipping. “Hopefully, that’s the next thing,” said Danielle Hritsko, an administrative assistant there.
These days versatility rules, Sandonato agreed. He built Hadley’s studio, with ipe floors and exterior walls and glass doors on two sides that sits in the corner of their frond-filled garden, in 2012. Since then it has morphed into a space that fulfils several of the family’s needs. House guests sleep there. When they have parties, they slide open the doors and let people mosey between the yard and the studio. Their daughter, 14, is lobbying for the shed to become a hangout zone when friends come over.
Hadley works exclusively from the studio, and she steals minutes to marvel at hummingbirds in her garden. “I 100 per cent believe that it did change my life,” she said. It gave her a separate space to focus, uninterrupted and inspired — especially valuable for a work-fromhome parent, she said.
There’s something about modern houses that has made people turn to backyard sheds for comfort, said Mitchell Parker, an editor and writer at Houzz.
“These open floor plans are so popular these days, but people are struggling to now find private, walled in spaces in which they can have some quiet time and feel like they’re in a comfortable, almost isolated space to get work done and close out the world around them,” he said. “People are looking for walls now.”