Q&A with ATL ADU Client Dan Sinykin

Building a Backyard ADU for Multigenerational Living in Ormewood Park

Tell us a little about yourself and how you ended up in Ormewood Park.

I moved to Atlanta in 2019 after getting hired at Emory University, where I work as an English professor. At the time, my wife Masha was working at Wofford College, so for the first couple years I was going back and forth between Atlanta and Spartanburg. I rented a place in Candler Park while we figured things out.

A few years later, Masha was able to get a position at Emory as well, and that’s when we knew we could really settle down in Atlanta. We bought our home in Ormewood Park in late 2021.

When did multigenerational living first become part of the conversation?

When we bought the house, it felt perfect for us. It’s about 1,300 square feet — a two bedroom, two bath — and at the time we didn’t have kids yet.

Then in 2023 we had our first kid, Eulia, and she was the first grandchild in the family. My parents live in Minnesota and were getting close to retirement, so they had already been thinking about spending winters somewhere warmer. Now suddenly they also had a grandchild in Atlanta.

At first, they were doing extended Airbnb stays in Ormewood Park during the winter months. They did that the first year and enjoyed it enough that we started asking ourselves: is there a better long-term solution than renting a different Airbnb every year?

At the same time, our own family was growing too. We now have two kids, and we were starting to realize we were growing into the house pretty quickly.

Did you ever consider moving or adding onto your house instead?

Definitely. When we bought the house, we honestly thought it might be a starter home. We figured maybe we’d stay five years and then move somewhere bigger.

We’ve done a few things to make the house work better for us — including converting a screened porch into a small room — so now it functions more like a 2.5 bedroom house. But with two kids and my parents wanting to spend more time in Atlanta, we started wondering what the long-term plan should be.

For a while, we looked at moving. We thought maybe we could find a place with a mother-in-law suite or even an existing ADU. But once we started seriously looking in 2024 and 2025, the numbers just didn’t make sense.

Interest rates were high, and we already had a mortgage rate in the low twos. When we factored in giving up that rate, plus closing costs, agent commissions, and moving expenses, it became hard to justify financially. That’s when the Accessory Dwelling Unit idea really started to emerge.

Why did the ADU ultimately make sense for your family?

The more we thought about it, the more it made sense for everyone involved. My parents wanted something more permanent than extended Airbnb stays, and we wanted flexibility that would allow us to stay in this neighborhood long term.

For my parents, the ADU gives them their own fully independent space. They have their own kitchen, washer and dryer, bedroom, furniture — everything. They’re autonomous, which was really important to them. And it’s not just for January through April. Now they can come down any time during the year and truly feel at home.

And for us, the flexibility has been amazing. Right now Masha’s mom is staying here for a couple weeks. We’ve had my brother stay for a week, friends can visit from out of town, and family come through regularly. It’s created this really flexible extra living space that’s woven into everyday life.

Financially, the ADU also made a lot of sense. In neighborhoods like Ormewood Park, the value of a 750 square foot two-bedroom, two-bath home is significant — far beyond what we spent on the ADU. So beyond the lifestyle benefits, it also felt like a smart long-term investment.

Were there any tradeoffs you had to consider before building the ADU?

The biggest tradeoff for us was yard space. We don’t have a huge backyard, so we knew we were giving some of that up. Masha enjoys gardening, so that was part of the conversation too. But we’ve got a couple urban farm spaces in the neighborhood where she could always get a garden plot if she wanted one, so it didn’t feel like giving that up forever. Ultimately, the ADU felt very worth it.

We also love living in Ormewood Park, and recently our section of the Beltline opened up, so now we’re only about two blocks away from it.

I bike commute to a lot of places, including work, and having direct access to the Beltline has enhanced how connected we feel to the city. When I moved here in 2019, I honestly didn’t think of Atlanta as a bike-friendly city. But the amount of bike infrastructure that’s been added over the last several years has been incredible.

We only have one car, and I’m planning to get an e-bike this fall that the kids can ride in as well. Being able to stay in the city, stay connected to transit and biking, and still make multigenerational living work was really important to us.

How has the ADU changed your day-to-day life?

It’s been fantastic.

We have a three-year-old and an infant, so having grandparent support right in the backyard has been huge. There’s enough separation where we’re in different buildings and the grandparents are autonomous, but they’re also close enough to be really connected to the grandkids and help with childcare.

For our three-year-old especially, she absolutely loves it. She’ll open the back door, run down the steps, ring the doorbell, and her grandparents open the door. She’s only three, but she can independently go over to her grandparents’ house, which is such a cool thing.

She knows where all her puzzles and games are over there, and for her it’s become this really fun play space.

Why did you decide to work with ATL ADU?

Because I bike around the city so much, I had seen ATL ADU signs around different neighborhoods before we started researching companies.

As I dug into the process more, I realized there are construction companies that build houses and occasionally build ADUs, and then there are companies like ATL ADU that specialize in ADUs. For what we wanted, specialization mattered.

You guys had clearly spent years figuring this process out, it’s the main thing you do, and you’ve really got the process dialed in. Honestly, the fact that you’re a little smaller and focused specifically on ADUs felt like a positive to us.

I also spent a lot of time looking into the people behind the company compared to some other ADU companies. Adam’s background as an architect, the fact that you’d been doing this since the zoning changes, the number of projects you’d completed, and the client testimonials all stood out to me.

Then once we actually met with you guys, it reinforced the feeling that this was a trustworthy team. And after we signed, I found out that a colleague of mine was wrapping up an ADU project with ATL ADU too. They had nothing but positive things to say, which was great confirmation that we’d made the right choice.

What would you say to someone considering building an ADU in Atlanta?

For us, the biggest thing is that we didn’t have to compromise.

We love living in the city. We love being close to the Beltline, being in a walkable neighborhood, biking places, and having access to everything that comes with living in Atlanta proper. At the same time, we wanted multigenerational living and close family connections.

The ADU allowed us to have both.

We didn’t have to move to the suburbs to make family life work. Instead, our kids get to grow up surrounded by grandparents and other adults they know and love. They have this larger network of people woven into their everyday life, and honestly that may be our favorite part of the whole project.

Beyond that, it’s also created a really flexible space for visiting family and friends while allowing us to stay rooted in a neighborhood we truly love.

If we can help you build an ADU like this for your family, we would love to connect!

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