Meet the North Hollywood Team Behind Ellery ADU Studio North Hollywood
Our North Hollywood crew shows up in matching gray Ellery uniforms with license numbers on the sleeve, not because it looks sharp (though it does), but because a client should know exactly who’s walking onto their property. We’re the team that handles ADU design and permitting, garage conversions, new detached units, junior ADUs, and site prep from Toluca Lake to Valley Village. What ties us together is simple: every one of us has signed the same Haven Standard, and every one of us has heard Nadia say, “The photo record doesn’t lie, and neither do we.”
Our People
Nadia Ellery, Owner & Principal Designer
I started Ellery ADU Studio in 2015 after spending six years as a project manager for a Valley contractor who shall remain nameless but who once told me, “The client doesn’t need to know about the rebar till it’s in.” I disagreed then, and I built this studio to prove it. I’m licensed, insured, and personally review every permit set before it leaves our office - usually with a red pen and too much coffee. My specialty is navigating LADBS plan check revisions without losing the thread of what the client actually wanted, which in North Hollywood often means squeezing a 400-square-foot unit onto a 5,000-square-foot lot while the neighbor’s ficus roots have other plans. Outside the office, I restore mid-century furniture badly and cook paella adequately. The Haven Standard exists because I got tired of explaining to friends why their contractor ghosted them after demo.
Marcus T., Lead Technician
Marcus has been with us since 2019, which in ADU years means he’s shepherded roughly 180 projects from rough framing to final inspection. He’s certified in CALGreen Tier 1 construction and holds a C-36 plumbing license, which matters more than you’d think when you’re rerouting a 1950s cast-iron main to serve a new detached unit in Valley Glen. Marcus is the person who calls me at 7:15 a.m. to say, “The slab’s got a 3-inch variance from the as-builts - here’s what I’m seeing and here’s what I’m proposing,” before I’ve had my second cup. He keeps a battered notebook of every inspector quirk he’s encountered in the San Fernando Valley, organized by district office. His daughter just started at North Hollywood High, so he’s particularly invested in getting home before traffic locks up the 170.
Darla S., Senior Installer
Darla came to us from commercial tenant improvement work in Burbank, where she spent eight years building out medical suites and learning that a 1/8-inch tolerance on a dental office wall is non-negotiable. She applies that precision to our prefab and modular coordination - Abodu, Cover, Dvele, Mighty Buildings, Boxabl, Plant Prefab, Tuff Shed, and James Hardie systems all pass through her hands before they meet the client’s foundation. She’s completed manufacturer certification on five of those eight brands and can spot a freight-damaged wall panel from thirty feet. Darla lives in Studio City and has a side business restoring vintage travel trailers, which she claims is “completely different” from ADU construction but which clearly trains the same spatial reasoning. She once spent three hours on a Saturday verifying that a Cover unit’s window rough opening matched our field measurements to the millimeter. It did. She was mildly disappointed.
Jin K., Service Coordinator
Jin is the voice you’ll hear when you call (424) 407-8266 at 10 p.m. because you just realized your permit expiration date is three weeks away and you have no idea what “PCIS” means. (It’s Plan Check Information System, and yes, Jin will walk you through it.) He’s been with Ellery since 2021, previously coordinating logistics for a solar installer that operated across six counties and never met a deadline it didn’t miss. Jin holds a bachelor’s in urban planning from CSUN, which he claims is “mostly useless except for understanding why the zoning code reads like a grudge.” He schedules every site visit, orders every material delivery to our North Hollywood staging yard, and maintains the photo record archive - currently 14,000+ images and counting. He plays goalkeeper in a rec league in Sherman Oaks and applies the same positional awareness to making sure our crews aren’t double-booked across the Valley.
Tomas R., Apprentice
Tomas joined us in 2024 through a partnership with Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, where he’s completing his construction technology certificate while working full-time. He’s already passed his OSHA 30 and is tracking toward his B-general contractor license, which he’ll sit for as soon as he hits the experience threshold. On site, Tomas works primarily with Marcus on foundation prep and rough carpentry - the unglamorous work that determines whether everything after it goes smoothly or goes to hell. He’s from Pacoima originally and still lives there, commuting up Laurel Canyon when the 170 is a parking lot. Tomas asks more questions than anyone on the crew, which is exactly what we want from someone who’ll eventually be running his own jobs. He also makes excellent tamales, which he brings to site meetings without being asked, a practice the rest of us have no intention of discouraging.
One Standard, Every Job
The Haven Standard isn’t a poster in our break room. It’s the operating system we run on, whether we’re converting a garage in Toluca Lake or dropping a prefab unit in Valley Village. Clause 1 means every client gets a written price before any work starts - no exceptions, no “we’ll figure it out as we go.” The documented photo record on every visit means Jin’s archive grows daily, and clients receive evidence, not reassurance. The 365-Day Done Right Promise is backed in writing before the project starts, not offered as a consolation prize when something goes wrong. Across every Ellery ADU Studio location, these terms are identical because the failures that created them were identical - we’ve all seen what happens when design and construction operate under separate contracts and separate incentives. Our North Hollywood team doesn’t point fingers at designers who don’t build or builders who don’t design. We’re under one roof, one contract, one written price. That’s the standard Nadia established in 2015, and it’s the standard Tomas will inherit when he runs his first crew. The license number on the sleeve isn’t decoration. It’s accountability you can verify.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio North Hollywood, serving North Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley since 2015.