Meet the Ontario Team Behind Ellery ADU Studio Ontario
Our crew lives in the same zip codes we build in. We’ve pulled permits at Ontario City Hall enough times to know which plans examiner prefers structural details on sheet A1 versus A3. What ties us together isn’t a handbook. It’s The Haven Standard, Clause 1 through 7, and the understanding that every ADU we touch is someone’s rental income, their parents’ retirement, or their kid’s first place out of the house.
Our People
Nadia Ellery, Owner
I started Ellery ADU Studio in 2015 after watching a client get handed three separate contracts for design, engineering, and build on a garage conversion in Rancho Cucamonga. When the foundation cracked, each party pointed at the other. That model made no sense to me. We run one contract, one written price, one phone number that a real person answers. I still review every permit set before it goes to Ontario Planning, and I sign off on every photo record before it goes to the client. My desk is cluttered with redlined grading plans from the last decade. I keep them because they remind me what not to assume about Ontario’s expansive clay soils.
Marcus T., Lead Technician
Marcus came to us from commercial framing in Fontana, carrying a C-5 framing and rough carpentry license he’s held since 2011. He runs pre-construction site walks in Ontario, Montclair, and Upland, and he’s the person who tells you whether your existing garage slab is 4 inches or 6 inches, and what that means for your foundation line item. He once caught a utility easement on a lot in the Ontario Ranch area that the preliminary title report had missed, saved the client a three-week delay. Off hours he restores vintage motorcycles and brings the same tolerance for imprecise measurements to neither job.
Diana R., Senior Installer
Diana handles our prefab and modular coordination, the piece that trips up most ADU projects. She’s fluent in Abodu, Cover, Dvele, Mighty Buildings, Boxabl, Plant Prefab, Tuff Shed, and James Hardie systems, and she knows which manufacturer can hit Ontario’s Title 24 energy code without a change order. Before joining us in 2019, she spent four years as a site supervisor for a modular builder in Riverside County. She keeps a spreadsheet of crane access requirements for every system we specify, updated after each install. Her detail: she names her hard hats after former math teachers, which she claims keeps her honest about load calculations.
Javier O., Service Coordinator
Javier is the live voice you get when you call (951) 577-3472 at 10 PM on a Sunday. He schedules site walks, tracks permit status with Ontario’s over-the-counter plan check, and maintains the photo record archive so every client gets dated evidence of what was found and what was done. He’s been with us since 2017 and has handled roughly 2,400 incoming calls. He knows which questions to answer directly and which ones require Nadia’s eyes on the lot. He grew up in Ontario’s Historic District and still lives three blocks from his grandmother’s house. He uses that local knowledge to flag zoning quirks most out-of-town designers miss.
Talisha K., Apprentice
Talisha joined us in 2023 through a construction technology program at Chaffey College. She’s working toward her C-10 electrical license and currently shadows Marcus on framing inspections while handling our drone documentation for site prep and grading verification. Her first solo task was documenting a 420-square-foot junior ADU conversion in North Ontario, every photo geotagged and uploaded before she left the driveway. She asks questions that remind the rest of us which assumptions we’ve stopped examining. She also bakes sourdough that has appeared at more than one job-site safety meeting.
One Standard, Every Job
The Haven Standard isn’t a poster in our break room. It’s the structure of how we work. Clause 1 means every project, from a garage conversion in Ontario’s Colony District to a new detached ADU near Cucamonga Creek, ships with a written price before any work starts. Clause 5 locks the scope at signing. No door-side upsells, no scope creep. Our 365-Day Done Right Promise, backed in writing before your project starts, means if the finished ADU doesn’t match the permitted drawings, we make it right. The photo record on every visit, the live person on the phone, the single contract covering design, permitting, and build, these aren’t perks. They’re how we avoid the finger-pointing that defined this industry before 2015.
We’ve designed, permitted, and built more than 900 ADUs since then. Every one with a written price up front. Every one with a documented photo record at completion. If you’ve got a written estimate from another studio, we’ll give you a Free Second Opinion. No obligation, no pressure. Just a second set of eyes from a crew that knows Ontario’s soil, its setback variances, and its plans examiners by name.
Written by Nadia Ellery, Owner at Ellery ADU Studio Ontario, serving Ontario since 2015.