A 610 Square Foot Plymouth ADU, Built for Larry

Why did the Snyders build an ADU in Plymouth?

Howard Snyder's brother Larry has lived with their mother. Larry is not very mobile and should not live alone, and the family wanted a plan in place before anything forced one. Assisted living was the default option. Anne and Howard did not think Larry would want to live among strangers, and they did not want him far away.

A one-level ADU in their own backyard answered every part of that. Larry gets his own place. Anne can make his food and help with laundry. Howard can walk over and watch a ball game. Their kids, who Larry loves being around, are right there. And until the day he moves in, it serves as a guest house. As Anne puts it, the last thing they need to worry about is where he is going to go.

How is a 610 square foot ADU made accessible?

This was the whole brief: a real accessible bathroom, well past an ADA checklist. The bathroom door is a 36 inch barn door that slides out of the way. The toilet is offset with room to transfer from a chair. The shower has a seat, a handheld spray and grab bars already installed, and there is blocking behind every wall so more can go in later with six screws. The vanity has tall linen towers, the sink is undermount, the countertops are quartz.

The rest of the house follows the same rule. There are almost no hallways and no doors that collide. The washer and dryer sit right off the hall where a wheelchair can reach them. The crawl space is fully encapsulated in spray foam, so there are no exterior penetrations and nothing gets in. When people tour it, Buz says, the first thing they notice is how big the bathroom is.

What was construction like for the Snyder family?

Anne had general contracted their kitchen renovation herself and it took six months. Never again. This time the family wanted a company that would take the project from start to finish, including the town, the permits, the engineers and the inspectors. Anne had served on a zoning board in their last town and knew how long that road could be. BuildX handled all of it. Once we signed on the dotted line, she says, they ran with it.

Justin, the project manager, was on site or stopping by every time anyone was working, and answered texts right away. The crews never disturbed anything past the construction line, so the dog kept the run of the backyard. The design meeting at BuildX headquarters ran over two hours because every finish was laid out in front of them at once. Howard got antsy. Anne, in her words, was having a blast.

How long did the Plymouth ADU take to build?

About three months, through a Massachusetts winter, with final inspections done by early March. Anne's background is construction, and she says the biggest problem in the trade is change orders. This build had none: the family added a window here and there and otherwise took the design as drawn. Her advice to anyone waiting for spring is not to. The crew was there in the cold and it did not slow them down.

Does 610 square feet feel small?

Anne calls it deceiving. It looks tiny on the lot, and then you walk in. Nine foot ceilings, a full-size electric range, a two-seat island, a 33 inch fridge, a big living room with room for a full sectional, and a queen bedroom with a walk-in closet. Outside there is a six by fourteen foot covered farmer's porch, because the family wanted Larry to have somewhere to sit in the summer. The shingle siding was matched to the main house so the two read as one property.

When Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll toured it, her first words on the number were that you say 610 and people expect cramped, and instead it is airy and light. Anne's version: somebody living in Manhattan would think this was the Taj Mahal.

Why did the Lieutenant Governor visit this ADU?

Massachusetts is roughly 220,000 housing units short, and the state's new law allows ADUs by right in every city and town. Lt. Governor Kim Driscoll came to Plymouth to see what that looks like in a real backyard, and the Snyder ADU was the stop. She toured the bathroom, the kitchen and the bedroom, asked Howard why the family built it, and said she wished her first house had looked like this. The visit is on video on this page.

Can an ADU be built for a family member with a disability?

Yes, and this is the build that shows how. Accessibility was designed in from the first meeting, not retrofitted: one-level living, wide doors that slide, a bathroom with room to move and grab bars already in place, and blocking in the walls for whatever comes next. If someone in your family will need this house to work for them as they age or as their mobility changes, say so on the first call. It changes the layout, not the timeline.

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