What Glendale Homeowners Say About Ellery ADU Studio Glendale
We’ve been designing and building ADUs in Glendale since 2015, and the feedback we value most comes from homeowners who’ve lived through the full process - from first sketch to final inspection. Every review below reflects a real project with a written price, a documented photo record, and our 365-Day Done Right Promise. No incentives, no filters. This is what happens when you treat an ADU build like the serious investment it is.
Recent Reviews
“We got three estimates for converting our detached garage in Chevy Chase Canyon. Ellery was the only one who put a real number on paper - $127,000 all-in, drawings through final inspection. The others said ‘call for a quote’ or gave a range that shifted by forty grand. Nadia’s crew found the existing slab was only 3.5 inches, below what Glendale requires for a conversion. She showed us the photo, explained the foundation line item ($8,200), and we signed knowing exactly what we were paying for. The photo record from every visit meant my wife and I could track progress without driving up from our office in DTLA.”
- Arjun S., Chevy Chase Canyon, Glendale
“Our Junior ADU in the Adams Hill area started as a back-house idea from my mother-in-law. The city flagged a setback issue - our property line is tighter than most because of the hillside grading on Sheldon Street. Nadia knew the Glendale zoning code well enough to calculate the variance before we paid for the full permit set, not after. Saved us six weeks. Final price matched the written quote exactly. Haven Standard Clause 1 sounds like marketing until you actually see it work.”
- Luis M., Adams Hill, Glendale
“I’m a general contractor myself, mostly commercial up in Valencia. I hired Ellery for my own home in Glenoaks because I didn’t have bandwidth to self-permit a detached ADU while running my own jobs. Nadia specified a Dvele prefab unit and coordinated the crane set over our existing two-story - something I wouldn’t have touched without her team’s MEP coordination. The 365-Day Done Right Promise was in writing before we started, and we actually used it: the mini-split condensate line wasn’t sloped correctly, discovered at month four. They fixed it in two days, no argument, no invoice. That’s rare in this business.”
- Ruben R., Glenoaks, Glendale
“We inherited a duplex in the Montrose-Verdugo City border area and wanted to add a garage conversion ADU for rental income. The previous owner had started unpermitted work - electrical that didn’t match the panel schedule, a bathroom rough-in with no venting. Nadia’s team documented everything with photos on day one, wrote a scope that separated ‘make it legal’ from ‘make it nice,’ and we chose both. The city inspector in Glendale actually commented that the permit set was cleaner than most he sees. Total was $94,500, which was $3,000 under the written estimate because the existing sewer lateral passed video inspection. They credited us before we asked.”
- Paige D., Montrose area, Glendale
“I brought Ellery a written estimate from another firm for a new detached ADU on our lot in Rossmoyne. Their Free Second Opinion saved us from a $22,000 mistake - the other designer had spec’d a conventional foundation without checking the soil report, and we’re on expansive clay that needs a post-tensioned slab in Glendale’s Zone 3. Nadia spotted it in twenty minutes. We hired her for the full design-build. The prefab route with Plant Prefab cut six weeks off the schedule, and the single contract meant no finger-pointing when the utility trench had to dodge a granite seam nobody knew was there.”
- Arjun S., Rossmoyne, Glendale
“My wife and I are both attorneys. We read contracts. The Haven Standard actually holds up - Clause 5, No Surprises, locked our scope at signing. When Glendale’s planning department requested a landscape screening revision for our Junior ADU in the Woodlands, Nadia absorbed the redline cost into her permit coordination fee rather than calling it a change order. The photo record from every site visit became evidence in a separate boundary dispute with our neighbor, which we won because we had dated, geotagged documentation of where the crew actually worked. Unexpected benefit, but we’ll take it.”
- Luis M., The Woodlands, Glendale
Why Customers Trust Us
The pattern in these reviews isn’t accident. It’s structure. Every Ellery ADU Studio project in Glendale runs under the same five Haven Standard clauses: written price before work starts (Clause 1), documented photo record on every visit (Clause 3), no surprise change orders (Clause 5), background-checked crews with visible license numbers, and the 365-Day Done Right Promise backed in writing. We’ve completed 900+ ADUs since 2015 - garage conversions, detached units, Junior ADUs, interior conversions - and every one left with a photo record, not a feeling summary.
Nadia Ellery specifies prefab and modular systems from Abodu, Cover, Dvele, Mighty Buildings, Boxabl, Plant Prefab, Tuff Shed, and James Hardie within the same single contract that covers design, permitting, site prep, and utilities. One contract means one accountable party. No designer blaming the builder, no builder blaming the drawings.
A live person answers our line at (424) 325-4322 - no voicemail queue, no callback that doesn’t happen. Call to schedule your free estimate, or bring us any written estimate you already have for a Free Second Opinion. We’ll tell you what we find, not what we felt.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio Glendale, serving Glendale since 2015.