How Ellery ADU Studio Long Beach Was Born in Long Beach
We remember the exact afternoon in late 2015 when we knew Long Beach needed something different. Nadia Ellery had spent three years working in the design-build world, watching ADU projects collapse into finger-pointing between architects who never visited the site and contractors who blamed the drawings for every overrun. That October, a homeowner in Belmont Heights called. She had a $340,000 quote for a 480-square-foot studio, no permit included, and the contractor had just walked off the job because the “design was wrong.” The design wasn’t wrong. The contractor had never read it. Nadia spent that weekend on her laptop in a coffee shop on Second Street, redrawing the foundation plan to match the actual slope of the lot, and realized this was the pattern: Long Beach’s older neighborhoods, with their 1920s setbacks and alley-access quirks, were being treated like suburban tracts. We opened this branch that winter with one rule: the drawings, the permit set, and the build stay under one contract, one price, one person accountable. No one else in Long Beach was doing that.
Nadia Ellery’s Personal Connection to the ADU Trade
Nadia didn’t stumble into this work. She was pulled into it by the smell of sawdust in her grandfather’s garage in Downey, though he was a machinist, not a builder, and he’d be annoyed we called it that. The smell was metal shavings and cutting oil, not pine, but the principle was the same: making something that fit precisely and lasted. She studied environmental design at Long Beach State, then spent two years in a firm that designed $4 million spec houses in Naples. The work was polished and hollow. She quit in 2012, took a job with a small design-build crew in Cypress, and spent her first month digging footings by hand in January rain because the excavator couldn’t fit down a 42-inch alley in Signal Hill. Her hands cracked and bled. She loved it.
The moment that locked her in: a 2014 job in the Zaferia District, a 380-square-foot garage conversion for a retired teacher who needed rental income to stay in her home. The existing slab was three inches out of level. The city inspector wanted engineered drawings. The architect of record had moved to Portland. Nadia measured everything herself, sketched the correction on graph paper at the kitchen table, and watched the teacher make coffee while she worked. The teacher didn’t say much. When Nadia handed her the stamped permit two weeks later, she cried. Not dramatically. Just wiped her eyes and said, “I can keep my house.” That’s the memory Nadia carries: the kitchen table, the smell of that coffee, the quiet. If she weren’t doing this, she’d be teaching drafting at a community college, probably poorly, because she doesn’t have the patience for students who don’t care. She cares too much about this. Eleven years in, she still visits finished jobs on weekends, unannounced, to see how the siding is weathering.
Meet Nadia Ellery - The Person Behind Every Job
Nadia Ellery is Owner and Founder of Ellery ADU Studio Long Beach. She holds a California contractor license and has completed specialized training in Title 24 energy compliance and HCD factory-built housing installation, critical for the prefabricated units we specify from brands like Plant Prefab and Abodu. Before leading this branch, she spent three years in the field as a project manager on small-lot subdivisions and ADU conversions across Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
What separates Nadia from a corporate franchise technician is simple: she signs every contract personally, and her phone number is on it. She lives in Long Beach, in a 1948 California bungalow she restored herself, badly at first, then better. She runs early mornings on the Shoreline bike path, knows which coffee shops open at 5:30 a.m., and believes that showing up on time is a moral obligation, not a logistical one. Her commitment to you is direct: she will read your survey, walk your lot, and name a price in writing before anyone lifts a hammer. If the drawings change, she’ll tell you before the concrete is ordered, not after.
Before
AfterOur Promise to Long Beach Homeowners
We operate under The Haven Standard, a five-clause code that governs every job we take in Long Beach, Lakewood, Carson, and across our service area.
Clause 1: Have it in writing. Every ADU we quote arrives as a flat price with a written scope and written warranty. We learned this the hard way in 2016, when a supplier price increase hit mid-job on a Cerritos garage conversion. We absorbed it. The customer never knew. Now we lock material prices at contract, and if we miss something, that’s our cost, not yours.
Clause 2: Arrive on schedule. We give real windows, not “sometime Tuesday.” A named technician. A text when they’re en route. Nadia once waited four hours for a plumber at her own house. She still mentions it.
Clause 3: Verified crews. Every professional working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires, with license numbers documented on your job record.
Clause 4: Evidence on every job. Photos and readings of what we actually found: foundation depth, soil conditions, existing electrical load calculations. You receive this documentation. It matters when you sell.
Clause 5: No surprises. No door upsell. No scope creep. No “while we’re in here.” If we find rot in your garage sill during a conversion, we photograph it, price the repair, and wait for your written approval.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed - Every ADU project in California requires a licensed contractor to pull permits and pass inspections. Working with an unlicensed operator voids your homeowner’s insurance if something fails. We pull permits in Long Beach, Lakewood, Carson, Cerritos, Cypress, Compton, Norwalk, Downey, Buena Park, San Pedro, Westminster, and Torrance, and we pass inspections.
- Insured & bonded - Your property is protected while we’re on it. The bond exists for your recovery if work is left unfinished. We’ve never needed it, but it’s there.
- Years of local experience - This branch opened in 2015. Nadia Ellery has led ADU projects in Long Beach’s specific conditions: the high water table near Alamitos Bay, the expansive clay soils in North Long Beach that crack slabs, the Coastal Commission overlay in Belmont Shore. That local knowledge prevents the surprises that kill budgets.
- Strong local reputation - We are known in the neighborhoods we serve. Architects refer us. Past customers show their units to curious neighbors. We do not advertise heavily; we survive on the quality of our documentation and the fact that our jobs finish at the price we named.
These credentials matter because an ADU is not a kitchen remodel. It is a dwelling. It has a sleeping area, a kitchen, a bathroom, and its own address in many cases. The inspector will test the smoke detector. The appraiser will compare it to permitted units, not bootleg conversions. Your future buyer will ask for the permit history. We build for that future person, not just for you.
Rooted in Long Beach
This branch lives where it works. Nadia runs past the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool at dawn. We’ve specified James Hardie siding on ADUs from Bluff Park to California Heights because it handles the marine layer without the maintenance wood demands. We know which Long Beach alleys fit a Tuff Shed delivery truck and which require crane sets. We’ve worked with the city’s Planning Bureau through three zoning code updates since 2015, including the 2023 changes that eliminated parking requirements near transit. We are not visitors who learned Long Beach from a map. We are locals who happened to choose a trade that lets us stay here, building shelter for our neighbors.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio Long Beach, serving Long Beach and surrounding communities since 2015.