How Ellery ADU Studio Burbank Was Born in Burbank
We opened this branch in 2015, the same year California rewrote its ADU law and the permit backlog in Los Angeles County went from weeks to months. Nadia Ellery had spent years watching homeowners in Burbank get stranded between designers who couldn’t build and builders who couldn’t read drawings. The moment that stuck happened that spring: a homeowner on Screenland Drive called us after paying two separate firms for a garage conversion that still couldn’t pass inspection. The drawings had the wrong setback. The contractor had poured the slab anyway. Neither would answer the phone.
Nadia walked the job, photographed every mismatch, and spent three evenings at the Burbank Building Division untangling it. The homeowner’s mother was living in a rental across town, waiting to move in. That was when we promised something different for this city: one contract, one price, one person accountable from the first sketch to the final inspection. No designer-builder blame loop. No surprise costs after the slab was poured. Ellery ADU Studio Burbank exists because that homeowner’s situation was common, and it shouldn’t have been.
Nadia Ellery’s Personal Connection to the ADU Trade
Nadia didn’t stumble into ADU work. She was drawn to it slowly, then completely.
Before 2015, she spent years in residential architecture, sitting across from clients who had beautiful plans and no clear path to build them. The drawings would come back from permit review with red ink, the builder would shrug, and the homeowner would pay for both sides to argue. Nadia started showing up to job sites with a tape measure and a camera, trying to close the gap between what was drawn and what could actually be built in Burbank’s tight lots and older neighborhoods.
The smell she remembers from those early sites was wet lumber and drywall dust, the particular gray light of a half-framed garage in February. She’d climb over studs in sneakers, not boots, because she wasn’t pretending to be a tradesperson. She was trying to understand what the framer saw when he looked at her drawings. Sometimes he’d point out a beam pocket that didn’t clear the existing foundation. Sometimes he’d just shake his head. Both taught her something.
By 2015, she had helped enough friends and neighbors navigate the new ADU rules that the work became its own practice. What gets her out of bed now is the same thing that kept her climbing over those studs: a finished ADU with someone living in it who couldn’t before. The mother who moves back from across town. The adult kid who finishes grad school without rent debt. The homeowner who finally has rental income to cover the mortgage they stretched for in 2019. If Nadia weren’t doing this, she’d probably be restoring old houses somewhere, still trying to make the drawings match the reality.
The ADU trade is personal because it takes a year. You don’t spend a year in someone’s backyard, negotiating with their neighbors and their inspector, without becoming part of their story. Nadia takes that seriously. She always has.
Meet Nadia Ellery - The Person Behind Every Job
Nadia Ellery is the Owner and Founder of Ellery ADU Studio Burbank. She holds a state license and has spent over a decade in the design-build space, with formal training in architectural technology and hands-on experience in permit expediting, structural coordination, and finish carpentry. She is not a franchise technician rotating through territories. She lives in the San Fernando Valley, drives the same truck to job sites, and knows which Burbank inspectors prefer digital submittals and which still want paper.
Outside of work, Nadia rebuilds vintage motorcycles, slowly and badly by her own admission, which taught her patience for projects where the manual doesn’t exist. Her commitment to every homeowner is direct: she reviews every permit set before it leaves this office, and her cell number is on the contract. Not because she’s available at all hours - our hours are Monday through Friday 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM, Saturday and Sunday 7:30 AM to 8:00 PM - but because accountability is the whole point of Ellery ADU Studio.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Burbank Homeowners
Our values aren’t posters on a wall. They’re policies with consequences.
Honest pricing. Every ADU job is quoted in writing before it starts, under Clause 1 of the Haven Standard. We learned this the hard way: early in our Burbank work, a competitor’s “estimate” for a Studio City client ballooned by forty percent after foundation work began. We don’t do that. The price you sign is the price you pay.
Quality materials. We specify brands we trust - James Hardie for siding in Burbank’s sun exposure, for example - and we document what was actually installed with photos and receipts. Evidence, not assurance.
Standing behind every job. Our workmanship warranty is written, dated, and specific to your project. Not a vague “satisfaction guaranteed.” A named scope, a named duration, a named person to call if something fails.
Our Credentials
State-licensed. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance California requires for residential construction. We don’t send unlicensed crews to your home.
Insured and bonded. This protects you if something goes wrong on your property, and it protects the workers who are in your backyard for six months. We don’t consider either optional.
Years of local experience. Since 2015, we’ve designed, permitted, and built ADUs across Los Angeles County, with deep familiarity in Burbank’s specific zoning, hillside ordinances, and historic district requirements.
Strong local reputation. We are known in this market for jobs that pass inspection the first time and for documentation that holds up when buyers ask questions years later.
These credentials matter because an ADU is a six-figure project in your personal space. You’re not buying a product off a shelf. You’re inviting a team into your property for months, trusting them with your finances, your timeline, and your relationship with neighbors. State licensing means someone verified our competence. Insurance means you’re not exposed if a worker is injured. Local experience means we’ve already solved the problems your lot will present. Reputation means we have to solve them well, because we live here too.
Rooted in Burbank
We’re not pretending to be from somewhere else. Nadia’s team works in the same traffic you do, shops at the same hardware stores, and understands why a delivery truck on Olive Avenue at 4:00 PM is a problem. We’ve built ADUs in the Rancho, in the Magnolia Park area, and on the hillside streets where Burbank’s setback rules get complicated. We know which blocks have oak trees whose roots will fight your foundation, and which ones have utility easements that kill standard floor plans. This is our branch, our license, our neighbors. What Ellery ADU Studio contributes is the Haven Standard that holds us to it, the documentation system that proves we did, and the buying power that keeps our material costs honest.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio Burbank, serving Burbank, North Hollywood, Glendale, Studio City, Van Nuys, West Hollywood, Sherman Oaks, Beverly Hills, Encino, Pasadena, Sylmar, and West Los Angeles since 2015.