Lifestyle
Retired, they moved from 6 bedrooms to a tiny L.A. ADU built in 3.5 months
Ever wondered how long it would take to build an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in your backyard?
In the case of Alvaro “Al” and Nenette Alcazar, a retired couple, who downsized from a six-bedroom home in New Orleans to a one-bedroom ADU in Los Angeles, it took just 3½ months.
“We went on vacation to the Philippines in November, right as they were getting started on construction,” Al says of the ADU his son Jay Alcaraz and his partner Andy Campbell added behind their home in Harbor Gateway. “When we returned in March of this year, the house was ready for us.”
The Alcazars were surprised by the rapid completion of their new 570-square-foot modular home by Gardena-based Cover. By the time construction was finished, they hadn’t yet listed their New Orleans home, where they lived for 54 years while raising their two sons.
Andy Campbell, seated left, and his partner Jay Alcazar’s home is reflected in the windows of the ADU where Alcazar’s parents Al and Nenette Alcazar, standing, now reside.
Jay Alcazar and Andy Campbell’s backyard in Harbor Gateway before they added an ADU.
(Jay Alcazar)
Alexis Rivas, co-founder and CEO of Cover, was also surprised by how quickly the ADU was permitted, taking just 45 days. “The total time from permit submittal to certificate of occupancy was 104 days,” he says, crediting the city’s Standard Plan and the ADU’s integrated panelized system for making it the fastest Clover has ever permitted.
For Al, a longtime religious studies professor at Loyola University New Orleans and community organizer, the construction process was more than just demolition and site prep. Seeing the Cover workers collaborate on their home reminded him of “bayanihan,” a Filipino core value emphasizing community unity and collective action.
“Both of my parents were public school teachers,” says Al, who was exiled from the Philippines in 1972. “When they moved to a village where there were no schools, the parents were so happy their children wouldn’t have to walk to another village to go to school that they built them a home.”
“It’s only one bedroom but we love it,” says Nenette Alcazar. “It’s the right size for two people.”
Like his childhood home in the village of Cag-abaca, Al says his and Nenette’s ADU “felt like a community built it somewhere and carried it into the garden for us to live in.” Only in this instance, the home was not a Nipa hut made of bamboo but a home made of steel panels manufactured in a factory in Gardena and installed on-site.
Jay Alcaraz, 40, and Campbell, 43, had been renting a house in Long Beach for three years when they started looking for a home to buy in 2022. Initially, they had hoped to stay in Long Beach, but when they realized they couldn’t afford it, they broadened their search to include Harbor Gateway. “It was equidistant to my job as a professor of critical studies at USC, and Jay’s job as a senior product manager at Stamps.com near LAX,” Campbell says.
When they eventually purchased a three-bedroom Midcentury home that needed some work, they were delighted to find themselves in a neighborhood filled with multigenerational households within walking distance of Asian supermarkets and restaurants.
The ADU does not overwhelm the backyard. “It looks like a house in a garden,” says Al Alcazar.
“We can walk to everything,” says Jay. “The post office. The deli. The grocery store. We love Asian food, and can eat at a different Asian restaurant every day.”
Adds Campbell: “We got the same thing we had in Long Beach here, plus space for an ADU.”
At a time when multigenerational living is growing among older men and women in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, it’s not surprising that the couple began considering an ADU for Jay’s parents soon after purchasing their home, knowing that Al and Nenette, who no longer drives, would feel comfortable in the neighborhood.
They started by reviewing ADUs that the city has pre-approved for construction as part of the ADU Standard Plan Program on the city’s Building and Safety Department website. The initiative, organized by former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office in collaboration with Building and Safety in 2021, was designed to simplify the lengthy permitting process and help create more housing.
The 570-square-foot house has a single bedroom and bathroom.
Jay and Al Alcazar have coffee in the kitchen of the ADU.
They reached out to several potential architects and secured a line of credit for $300,000. They decided to go with Cover after touring its facility and one of its completed ADUs. “We liked that they were local and their facility was five minutes away from us,” Campbell says.
The couple originally envisioned removing their backyard pergola and lawn and adding an L-shaped ADU. But after consulting with Rivas, they decided on a rectangular unit with large-format glass sliders and warm wood cladding to preserve the yard.
The configuration was the right choice, as the green space between the two homes, which includes a deck and drought-tolerant landscaping, serves as a social hub for both couples, who enjoy grilling, sharing meals at the outdoor dining table and gardening. Just a few weeks ago, the family celebrated Al’s 77th birthday in the garden along with their extended family.
Nenette, a self-described “green thumb,” is delighted by the California garden’s bounty, including oranges, lemons, guava trees and camellias. “I can see the palm trees moving back and forth and the hummingbirds in the morning,” she says.
“They’re a lot of fun,” Jay Alcazar says of his parents. “They are great dinner companions.”
Although some young couples might hesitate to live close to their parents and in-laws, Jay and Campbell see their ADU as a convenient way to stay close and support Jay’s parents as they age in place.
Besides, Jay says, they’re a lot of fun. “They are great dinner companions,” he says.
Campbell, who enjoys having coffee on the outdoor patio with Al, agrees. “When I met them for the first time 12 years ago, they had a group over for dinner and hosted a karaoke party until 3 a.m.,” he said. “I was like, ‘Is this a regular thing?’”
A teak bed from the Philippines and family mementos help to make the new ADU feel like home.
Unlike the Alcazars’ spacious 1966 home in New Orleans, their new ADU’s interiors are modern and simple, with white oak floors and cabinets and Bosch appliances, including a stackable washer and dryer. Despite downsizing a lifetime of belongings, Al and Nenette were able to keep a few things that help make the ADU feel like home. In the living room, mother of pearl lamps and wood-carved side tables serve as a reminder of their old house. In their bedroom, a hand-carved teak bed from the Philippines, still showing signs of water damage from Hurricane Katrina, was built by artisans in Nenette’s family.
“Madonna and Jack Nicholson both ordered this bed,” Nenette says proudly.
The couple chose a thermally processed wood cladding for its warmth. “It will develop a silver hue over time,” says Alexis Rivas of Cover. “It’s zero maintenance.”
But one thing didn’t work out in their move West. When they realized their sofa would take up too much room in the 8-foot portable storage pod they rented in New Orleans, they decided to purchase an IKEA sleeper sofa in L.A. It’s now in the mix along with their personal artifacts and family photos that further add memories to the interiors, including a reproduction of the Last Supper, a common tradition in many Filipino homes symbolizing the importance of coming together to share meals. With limited storage, the families share the two-car garage, where Al stores his tools.
“It’s only one bedroom, but we love it,” says Nenette, 79, of the ADU, which cost $380,000. “It’s just the right size for two people.”
The ADU feels private, both couples say, thanks to the 9-foot-long custom curtains they ordered online from Two Pages Curtains. “When the curtains are open, we know they are awake, and when their curtains are down, we know to leave them alone,” Jay says, laughing at their ritual.
In terms of aging in place, the ADU can accommodate a wheelchair or walker if necessary, and Rivas says a custom wheelchair ramp can be added later if necessary.
Now, if only Jay could mount the flat-screen television on the wall, Al says, teasing his son. It’s hard to escape dad jokes when he’s living in your backyard — and that’s the point.
“It’s really nice having them here,” Andy says.
Jay Alcazar and Andy Campbell enjoy having Al and Nenette Alcazar close. “They feel like neighbors,” Jay says.
After losing his family and home in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the country, Al, who once studied to be a priest, says he’s deeply moved to be the recipient of the bayanihan spirit once again.
“I was tortured in the Philippines, and it didn’t break me,” he says. “So having a home built by a friendly community really points to a shorter but more spiritual meaning of bayanihan, which is, ‘when a group of friends,’ as my grandma Marta used to say, ‘turns your station of the cross into a garden with a rose.’ Now, we have Eden here in my son’s backyard.”
Lifestyle
Cheddar bay biscuits, cheap margs and memories: Readers share their nostalgia for chain restaurants
Affordable, familiar and reassuring are the features that make American chain restaurants a near-ubiquitous presence throughout the country; it is almost as if they are baked into our roadside culture.
Despite well-documented financial struggles, a tough economy and shifting diet trends, these restaurants withstand time.
This series explores why these places have such strong staying power and how they stay afloat at a time of rapid change.
Read our first three pieces in this series, including how these restaurants leverage nostalgia to attract diners, how they attempt to keep costs affordable, and how social media has changed the advertising game – and become a vital key to restaurants’ success.
America’s chain restaurants are not the most glamorous places to eat. And yet, as we’ve reported, they hold a special place in many Americans’ hearts.
We asked readers what comes to mind when they think of restaurants like Olive Garden, Applebee’s or Texas Roadhouse — and you shared plenty of stories.
Not all of the respondees waxed poetic about the merit of these restaurants. David Horton, 62, from New York, for example, said: “The food is mostly frozen and only has flavor from the incredible amounts of sodium they use.”
But overwhelmingly, responses described vivid childhood memories shared in booths looking excitedly over laminated menus and the type of adolescent rites of passage that seem right at home in the parking lot of a suburban chain restaurant.
There’s a science behind why these sorts of memories have such a hold on us.
The feeling of nostalgia is linked closely to food and smell, and these restaurant chains are often where core memories – like graduation celebrations or first dates – are made.
Chelsea Reid is an associate professor at the College of Charleston who studies nostalgia. And she’s no more immune to nostalgic feelings than anyone else even though she has a better understanding of the chemistry behind the feeling.
“Even just saying Red Lobster, I can kind of picture the table and the things that we would do and the things we’d order, and my mom getting extra biscuits to take home,” she said.
A Red Lobster restaurant is seen in Fairview Heights, Ill., in 2005.
James A. Finley/AP
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James A. Finley/AP
Her nearest Red Lobster closed down, but a local farmers’ market sells a scone reminiscent of Red Lobster’s famed Cheddar Bay Biscuits – a scent she says immediately transports her back to those childhood family outings to the seafood chain.
“I can see my mom wrapping these up in a napkin and putting them in her purse for when we would be like, ‘hey, we’re hungry,’ and she pulls out a purse biscuit.”
Full disclosure: Your intrepid reporters are not without sentimentality. Before launching this project, when it was just a kernel of an idea, we talked frequently about the role these restaurants played in our own lives.
Jaclyn: I distinctly remember cramming into a booth at my local Chili’s in my hometown, Cromwell, Ct., for most birthday dinners until the age of 13 or so.
I’d be surrounded by my mom, dad and brother, and I got to pick whatever I wanted. Except I always chose the same thing: Chicken crispers with a side of fries, topping the night off with the molten lava chocolate cake we’d share as a family.
I can picture it so clearly, down to the booth we’d sit in. Now, my family is spread out. But my love for Chili’s runs deep, and I still get warm and fuzzy when I think about it.
These days, I’m in my 30s, and I need to worry about my health and getting in 10,000 steps a day. So, no, I don’t regularly go to Chili’s now.
But when I do? Those chicken crispers I had as a kid are still on the menu, and yes, I’m likely to order them today (even if on my adult tastebuds, the salt content quickly turns my mouth into the Sahara Desert).
And it’s not to celebrate my birthday. It’s because one of my best friends is telling me she’s getting a divorce over cheap, and sugary, margaritas.
Alana: When the pandemic struck in 2020 and much of the country went into lockdown, there I was mostly alone in my one bedroom apartment, staring at the walls.
After what seemed like a lifetime, I was finally able to expand my tiny COVID bubble.
One of my first “dining out” experiences during that time was in the parking lot of the Hyattsville, Md., Olive Garden where my friend and I sat in absolute glee to be reunited – not just with one another, but also the chain’s staple soup (zuppa toscana for me, please), salad and breadsticks (you can have all the breadsticks if I can have your share of the salad tomatoes).
Since then, that friend and many others have moved away – too far to meet up for a sit-down over a (mostly) hot meal at a reasonably priced restaurant in a city not famed for being cheap.
I recently revisited the Hyattsville Olive Garden for this story. And even though my life is now different, my friends have moved away, and the world has shifted, there it was, exactly the same.
And I liked it.
Many readers said that these restaurants were the type of place a family who could rarely afford to eat outside a home could treat themselves on rare occasions.
Like Julie Philip, 51, from Dunlap, Ill., who wrote: “Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, Red Lobster was an Easter tradition. We would dress up, go to church, then drive close to an hour to Red Lobster.”
She continued, “It was one of only a few days a year that we could afford to eat at a ‘fancy restaurant.’ I remember my parents remarking that they had to spend $35 for our family of four. I no longer consider Red Lobster a ‘fancy restaurant,’ but as an adult, my family and I often still eat there at Easter. I remind my kids that we are keeping up a family tradition and I tell them stories of my childhood while eating.”
The original Applebee’s restaurant was called T.J. Applebee’s Rx for Edibles & Elixirs and it opened in Decatur, Ga., in 1980.
Applebee’s
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Applebee’s
For Sarah Duggan, an Applebee’s parking lot evokes a key memory from young adulthood.
Duggan, 32, from North Tonawanda, N.Y., wrote that every time she sees an Applebee’s, she remembers the time her friend, in an act of teenage rebellion, got her belly button pierced in the parking lot of a Long Island Applebee’s — inside the trunk of the piercer’s “salvage-title PT Cruiser.”
Duggan held the flashlight.
She wrote, “I can’t picture those sorts of college kid shenanigans happening in the parking lot of a regular Long Island diner or other independent restaurant, but it seems right that it was at Applebee’s.”
She continued, “It makes me think about how nobody, from riotous camp counselors to your spouse’s grandparents, looks or feels out of place at a chain restaurant.”
NASCAR’s Gregg Biffle
Jet Turns Into Ball Of Flames …
Shocking Video Shows
Published
Brevin Renwick
Horrifying new video shows the precise moment a plane carrying NASCAR driver Greg Biffle and his family crashed and exploded in flames Thursday, killing everyone on board.
Security footage captured the corporate jet turning into a ball of fire as it crash-landed near a runway at Statesville Regional Airport in North Carolina. The aircraft was scheduled to fly to Florida, but not long after takeoff, it turned back to the airport before crashing.
As you can see from the clip, the plane was reduced to what looks like a burning oil slick with black smoke rising into the sky. All seven people on the plane died, including Biffle, his wife, Cristina and two children — Emma, 14, and Ryder, 5.
PEOPLE reported minutes before impact, Cristina sent her mom a chilling text, stating, “We’re in trouble.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of the crash.
President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box as he visits the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C, on March 17, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
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Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will now have a new name — the “Trump-Kennedy Center.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the news on social media Thursday, saying that the board of the center voted unanimously for the change, “Because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.”
Shortly after the announcement, Ohio Democrat Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio member of the board, refuted the claim that it was a unanimous vote. “Each time I tried to speak, I was muted,” she said in a video posted to social media. “Participants were not allowed to voice their concern.”
When asked about the call, Roma Daravi, vice president of public relations at the Kennedy Center, sent a statement reiterating the vote was unanimous: “The new Trump Kennedy Center reflects the unequivocal bipartisan support for America’s cultural center for generations to come.”
Other Democrats in Congress who are ex-officio members of the Kennedy Center Board, including Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement stating that the president is renaming the institution “without legal authority.”
“Federal law established the Center as a memorial to President Kennedy and prohibits changing its name without Congressional action,” the statement reads.
Earlier this year, Trump installed himself as the chairman of the center, firing former president Deborah Rutter and ousting the previous board chair David Rubenstein, along with board members appointed by President Biden. He then appointed a new board, including second lady Usha Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Fox News host Laura Ingraham and more.
Trump hinted at the name change earlier this month, when he took questions before becoming the first president to host the Kennedy Center Honors. He deferred to the board when asked directly about changing the name but said “we are saving the Kennedy Center.”
The president was mostly hands off with the Kennedy Center during his first term, as most presidents have been. But he’s taking a special interest in it in his second term, touring the center and promising to weed out programming he doesn’t approve of. His “One Big Beautiful Bill” included $257 million for the building’s repairs and maintenance.
Originally, it was called The National Cultural Center. In 1964, two months after President Kennedy was assassinated, President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation authorizing funds to build what would become the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
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