How Ellery ADU Studio North Hollywood Was Born in North Hollywood
We remember the exact afternoon in 2015 when we knew North Hollywood needed something different. Nadia Ellery had been working with the parent brand, Ellery ADU Studio, since its founding that same year - the year California’s ADU law changed and the permitting queue became the actual product. She was managing a project in Studio City, walking a homeowner through a change order that had ballooned from a $15,000 allowance to a $47,000 surprise. The homeowner sat on their front steps, head in hands, while the designer blamed the builder and the builder blamed the designer. Nadia watched this unfold and thought: this is why people are terrified of ADUs. She called the parent brand that evening and asked to open the North Hollywood branch. Not because the market was untapped, but because it was wounded. Homeowners here were paying premium prices for projects where the designer and builder could each point fingers at the other. She promised to run this branch differently - one contract, one price, one person accountable. That was the day Ellery ADU Studio North Hollywood started taking shape.
Nadia Ellery’s Personal Connection to the ADU Trade
Nadia didn’t stumble into ADU work. She was drawn to it slowly, then all at once. Before 2015, she spent years in architectural drafting, sitting in a Burbank office producing drawings that went to builders she never met. The work was precise, but it felt incomplete. She would drive past finished projects and wonder whether the built reality matched the lines she’d drawn, whether the homeowner understood what was happening behind their walls. She wanted to see the whole arc.
The turning point came during a site visit in Van Nuys. A homeowner had hired a designer and a contractor separately, and the two had stopped speaking to each other. Nadia walked into a half-framed structure where the window openings were four inches off from the approved plans. The smell of fresh lumber and tension filled the space. She spent three hours on a folding chair in that unfinished room, sketching solutions on plywood with a carpenter’s pencil, talking the homeowner through what had gone wrong and how to fix it without starting over. The homeowner cried with relief. Nadia drove home to her apartment in North Hollywood that night with sawdust still on her shoes and knew: this was the work. Not drawing alone. Not building alone. The bridge between them.
That was over ten years ago. What gets her out of bed now is the same thing - a text from a homeowner at 6 a.m. with a photo of their foundation pour, or a question about whether the insulation we specified will actually work in a North Hollywood summer. She would be restoring old houses if she weren’t doing this, probably somewhere in the hills between Studio City and Sherman Oaks, stripping paint with a heat gun and finding the original wood underneath. The patience is the same. You can’t rush either one.
Meet Nadia Ellery - The Person Behind Every Job
Nadia Ellery is Owner & Founder of Ellery ADU Studio North Hollywood. She trained in architectural technology at a California state university, then spent her early career in drafting and project coordination before joining Ellery ADU Studio at its founding in 2015. She holds the state-required contractor license for this work and has completed the brand’s internal certification in the Haven Standard documentation system.
What separates Nadia from a corporate franchise technician is simple: she lives three miles from her office, shops at the same North Hollywood hardware stores her crews use, and has personally walked every neighborhood from Toluca Lake to Valley Village where her ADUs now stand. On weekends, she restores vintage furniture - a practice that taught her to measure twice and to love the grain of actual materials, not catalog photos. She answers her phone when she can, and when she can’t, a live coordinator connects you to her directly.
Her commitment to every customer is specific: she reviews every permit set before it leaves this office, and she visits every active job site at least twice.
Our Promise to North Hollywood Homeowners
Our values come from the Haven Standard, but how we live them here is ours.
Have it in writing. Every Ellery ADU Studio North Hollywood project starts with a flat price, a written scope, and a written warranty before anyone picks up a hammer. Nadia learned this the hard way early in her career, watching a homeowner in Burbank sign a vague proposal and then receive six change orders. We don’t do that. Clause 1 of the Haven Standard is the whole point.
Arrive on schedule. We give a real window, a named technician, and a text when they are on the way. Not because we’re perfect, but because we’ve been the homeowner waiting without information, and we won’t put anyone through that.
No surprises. No door upsell, no scope creep, no “while we’re in here.” If we find something unexpected - old sewer lines in Valley Glen, say, or non-compliant setbacks in a pocket of North Hollywood we hadn’t seen before - we document it, photograph it, and price it in writing before we proceed. Haven Standard Clause 5.
Our Credentials
Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. Here’s what that means for your project:
- State-licensed contractor status - We maintain the California contractor license required for ADU design-build work. For you, this means permit applications move through the system without the delays that unlicensed operators cause, and the city of Los Angeles will accept our drawings and our build without a second review.
- Insured & bonded - Coverage is in place for the property damage and liability risks that come with construction in an occupied home. For you, this means your homeowner’s policy isn’t the backstop if something goes wrong.
- Years of local experience - Nadia Ellery has been working ADU projects in this market since 2015, through the initial law changes, the 2020 updates, and the current permitting environment. For you, this means she’s seen the specific plan-check comments that North Hollywood and Los Angeles building departments return, and she knows how to answer them before they become delays.
- Strong local reputation - We are known in the neighborhoods we serve, from the Valley Village homeowners who refer their neighbors to the Studio City architects who send clients our way when they need a build partner, not just drawings.
These credentials matter because an ADU is a year-long relationship and a six-figure decision. You’re not buying a product off a shelf. You’re letting people into your property, your finances, and your daily life for months. The license, the insurance, and the local track record are how you know we understand the weight of that.
Rooted in North Hollywood
We’re based on Lankershim Boulevard, and our work shows in the neighborhoods we drive through daily - the backyard studio in Toluca Lake, the garage conversion in Valley Glen, the new detached unit on a corner lot near the North Hollywood Arts District. Nadia lives here. Her crew members live in Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks. We buy materials from the same supply houses on Saticoy Street that have served this valley for decades. We know which North Hollywood lots have the oak trees that trigger additional review, and which blocks still carry the utility easements that can kill an ADU placement if you don’t catch them early. This isn’t marketing copy. It’s the actual ground we walk on.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio North Hollywood, serving North Hollywood and the surrounding San Fernando Valley since 2015.