How Ellery ADU Studio Thousand Oaks Was Born in Thousand Oaks
We remember the exact afternoon in late 2015 when we knew Thousand Oaks needed something different. Nadia Ellery had been watching the California ADU law change that January, watching the permitting queues swell, watching homeowners walk into our office with drawings from one architect and quotes from three builders, none of which matched. The system was designed to fail them.
What broke it open was a call from a homeowner near Wildwood Regional Park. They had spent eight months and $14,000 on architectural drawings only to learn no builder would touch the foundation plan. The designer blamed the soils report. The soils engineer blamed the designer. The homeowner was left holding unusable plans and a drained savings account. Nadia spent three hours that evening on their porch, sketching a redesign that could actually be permitted and built, and wrote a single price on a single page. That was the moment. We would bring Ellery ADU Studio to Thousand Oaks, and we would run it under one contract: drawings, permit set, build, one price, one responsible party. No more finger-pointing. No more “that’s not my scope.”
We opened this branch the following spring. The parent brand already existed, already held the standards, already had the documentation system. What we built here was the local team, the local knowledge, and the trust that comes from sitting on someone’s porch until they understand exactly what they’re buying.
Nadia Ellery’s Personal Connection to the ADU Trade
Nadia didn’t stumble into ADU work. She was pulled into it by the smell of sawdust in a garage in Westlake Village, summer of 2009, helping a tradesman who had trained her frame what they still called a “granny flat” back then. The air was thick with redwood dust and the particular sharpness of fresh PT lumber. She was twenty-three, had just finished a degree she wasn’t using, and found herself staying late to finish the roof sheathing because she couldn’t stand leaving the lines crooked.
That tradesman taught her to read a structural drawing the way some people learn to read music: slowly at first, then as a language. She learned that the gap between what a drawing showed and what a framer could actually build was where most projects died. By 2012 she was running her own small jobs, walking permit counters in Ventura County with rolled sets under her arm, learning which plan checkers would actually talk to you and which wanted you to fail and come back.
The personal thread that runs through all of it is this: Nadia likes the part where a homeowner finally understands their own property. The moment when someone who’s lived in a house for fifteen years sees, really sees, how their backyard could hold a second dwelling, how their mortgage could be offset, how their parents could age nearby without losing independence. That look on someone’s face, in their kitchen in Thousand Oaks or their patio in Agoura Hills, is what would still get her out of bed if she won a lottery she doesn’t play.
If she weren’t doing this, she’d probably be restoring old boats in Ventura Harbor, working with her hands on something that demands the same patience: measure twice, cut once, caulk what you can’t cut. The physical honesty of it. She brings that same intolerance for shortcuts to every ADU we design and build.
Meet Nadia Ellery - The Person Behind Every Job
Nadia Ellery, Owner & Founder, Ellery ADU Studio Thousand Oaks
Nadia has spent the last decade and a half in the design-build trade, with the last eleven years focused specifically on accessory dwelling units since Ellery’s founding in 2015. Her training began in the field, framing and finishing, before she moved into project management and eventually into the integrated design-build model that defines our work today. She holds the state licensing required for the scope of work we perform, and every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires.
What separates Nadia from a corporate franchise technician is simple: she still walks every job site before we quote, still reviews every permit set before submission, and still takes the call when a homeowner is confused about their invoice. On weekends you’ll find her trail-running the Santa Monica Mountains, the same terrain where many of our ADUs are built, thinking through drainage details and setback puzzles. She believes an ADU is a year-long relationship, not a transaction, and she commits to answering every question with the specificity she’d want if she were spending her own savings.
Our promise to you, directly from Nadia: “I’ll put my name on your job because I stand behind it. Not the brand’s name. Mine.”
Our Promise to Thousand Oaks Homeowners
We operate under The Haven Standard, five clauses that govern every job we take. We didn’t invent them, but we enforce them here as if we did.
Clause 1: Have it in writing. Every ADU job is quoted in writing before it starts. Flat price, written scope, written warranty. We watched a homeowner in Oak Park lose six months to verbal promises that evaporated when the first invoice arrived. That doesn’t happen here. The price on the page is the price you pay.
Clause 2: Arrive on schedule. A real window, a named tech, a text when they are on the way. Not “sometime Tuesday.” Not a four-hour black hole.
Clause 3: Verified crews. Licensed, insured, background-checked. License number on the page. We don’t send strangers to your home.
Clause 4: Evidence on every job. Photos and readings of what we actually found. When we open a wall in a Thousand Oaks hillside home and find unexpected bedrock, you see it. When we verify your sewer lateral capacity, you get the camera footage. No trust-me moments.
Clause 5: No surprises. No door upsell, no scope creep, no “while we’re in here.” The written scope is a fence we don’t climb.
These aren’t slogans. They’re the specific failures we watched destroy homeowner trust in 2015, and the specific walls we built to prevent them.
Our Credentials
- State-licensed for the full scope of ADU design and construction work we perform in California
- Insured & bonded - coverage maintained for every project phase from design through final inspection
- Years of local experience in Ventura County and western Los Angeles County markets, with deep familiarity of Thousand Oaks hillside soils, fire zone requirements, and water district regulations
- Strong local reputation built through documented completion of projects in neighborhoods from Newbury Park to Westlake Village
Why this matters to you: an ADU is a six-figure investment in your property, and you’re inviting a team into your home for months. State licensing means someone has verified our technical competence. Insurance and bonding means if something goes wrong, you’re not pursuing a personal bankruptcy for recovery. Local experience means we already know which Thousand Oaks plan checker will flag your setback calculation and which Camarillo water district form expires quarterly. And reputation means we have something to lose if we disappoint you - which is exactly why we document everything.
Rooted in Thousand Oaks
This branch lives where it works. Nadia’s run the trails at Wildwood Regional Park enough to know which hillsides drain poorly after winter rains, knowledge that directly affects foundation design for ADUs in those canyons. We’ve pulled permits at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza enough times to know the rhythm of the counter. We’ve built in the Conejo Valley’s fire hazard severity zones, navigated the overlapping requirements of Ventura County Waterworks Districts, and learned which Oak Park lots sit on the shrink-swell clay that cracks standard flatwork. We’re not visiting your neighborhood. We’re already in it.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio Thousand Oaks, serving Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Oak Park, Moorpark, Agoura Hills, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Malibu, Calabasas, West Hills, Fillmore, and Canoga Park since 2015.