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Looking over the four buildings on the property — the single family home Cortes and Bernson live in, two duplexes and an ancient tool shed refashioned as an artist’s studio — LA Más concluded the shed would have to go to make room for an ADU that would bring in market-rate rent.

Whatever the task — from roasting peanuts for his grandfather’s pinochle buddies to building a tool shed from scratch — it had to be done right.

The tool shed was broken into almost a dozen times and all the equipment stolen, says Koji Intlekofer, unlocking the gate on a cloudy spring afternoon.

He invited us to stay for breakfast and visit the rubblework monastery behind his house, which for many years he has used as a tool shed.

The structure wasn’t much bigger than Uncle Holt’s tool shed and was put together with about as much care.