What San Bernardino Homeowners Say About Ellery ADU Studio San Bernardino
We’ve been designing, permitting, and building ADUs in San Bernardino since 2015, and we don’t ask for reviews - we earn them by doing what we said we’d do, at the price we wrote down, with a photo record that shows what happened. The homeowners below are real people in real San Bernardino neighborhoods. Their stories are typical of what we see: a garage that sat empty for years, a backyard that finally made financial sense, a permit process that didn’t become a second job.
Recent Reviews
“We’d gotten two other estimates for our garage conversion in Del Rosa, and both were ‘call us when you’re ready to move forward’ with no number on paper. Nadia sat at our kitchen table and wrote $87,500 - design, permits, construction, final inspection - and that was the number at closing. The photo record showed us the rebar in the slab before the pour, the electrical rough-in, the insulation inspection. Our son moved in last March.”
Nadia K., Del Rosa, San Bernardino
“I inherited my mother’s place in Valley View and the detached garage was basically a storage unit for forty years of nobody-wants-this. Ellery turned it into a 480-square-foot JADU - junior accessory dwelling unit - and now my niece lives there while she finishes nursing school at CSUSB. The permit took eleven weeks, which Nadia warned us about upfront. No surprises, no ‘we found something unexpected.’ The 365-Day Done Right Promise was in the contract, not just mentioned.”
Tracy B., Valley View, San Bernardino
“We’re on a corner lot in Arrowhead, which meant setback rules I didn’t understand. Nadia explained it in one sentence: the ADU has to sit six feet from the side property line and ten from the rear, but our lot width gave us enough room for a 620-square-foot detached unit anyway. She showed me the site plan with the dimensions, then the photo record showed the stakes in the ground, then the foundation, then the framing. I didn’t have to drive over and check - the pictures came to my phone.”
Elena M., Arrowhead, San Bernardino
“I had a written estimate from another company for my garage conversion in Mount Vernon, but the scope was vague - ‘electrical as needed,’ ‘flooring TBD.’ I used Ellery’s Free Second Opinion. Nadia crossed out half the line items and explained why: my existing panel had capacity, the slab was already four inches and in good shape, and the garage door header could stay if we framed in a proper wall. Her written price was lower and every item had a number next to it. Under Clause 5, No Surprises, that scope didn’t change.”
Lamont B., Mount Vernon, San Bernardino
“The prefab route scared me. I liked the idea of a modular unit but didn’t want to be the project manager between the factory and a local crew that had never installed one. Ellery specified a Cover unit for our backyard in Del Rosa and handled the coordination - foundation, crane set, utility tie-ins, final inspection - under the same contract. One written price. One person to call. The photo record showed the module arriving on the truck, the crane lift, and the final walkthrough. I watched it happen from my office.”
Nadia K., Del Rosa, San Bernardino
“My mother’s JADU in Valley View needed to be wheelchair accessible, which meant zero-step entry, wider doors, and a roll-in shower. Nadia brought the accessibility checklist from San Bernardino’s building department to our first meeting - not after we’d drawn plans that wouldn’t pass. The permit was approved on first submittal. The 365-Day Done Right Promise mattered to me because my mother is eighty-three and I needed to know that if something wasn’t right, it would be fixed without me becoming a full-time advocate.”
Tracy B., Valley View, San Bernardino
Why Customers Trust Us
These aren’t cherry-picked stories. They’re what happens when a design-build studio operates under rules that protect the homeowner, not the contractor.
The Haven Standard governs every project. Clause 1 requires a written price before any work starts - not an estimate, not a range, a number that doesn’t change unless you change the scope. Clause 5 locks that scope at signing: no door-side upsells, no “while we’re here” additions, no scope creep. Every visit produces a documented photo record, so you see what was found and what was done, not a summary of how it felt. The 365-Day Done Right Promise is in writing before the project starts - if the finished ADU doesn’t match the permitted drawings, we make it right.
We’ve completed more than 900 ADUs since 2015. Every one had a written price upfront. Every one had a photo record. Every one was backed by the same promise.
A live person answers our phone at (909) 359-6463, 24 hours a day. No voicemail queue. No callback that doesn’t materialize. If you have a written estimate already in hand, we’ll give you a Free Second Opinion - we’ll tell you what’s solid, what’s vague, and what questions you should ask before you sign.
Call (909) 359-6463 to schedule your free estimate. Nadia Ellery will sit down with you, look at your property, and write a number that means something.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio San Bernardino, serving San Bernardino since 2015.