How Lodgewick ADU San Francisco Was Born in San Francisco
We opened our San Francisco branch because we kept hearing the same story from homeowners in the Sunset, the Richmond, and out toward the Avenues. Someone would get three bids for a backyard cottage. The cheapest one looked great until the contract arrived with allowances that didn’t cover flooring, a foundation line item that tripled after demolition, and a finish date that slipped by four months. The most expensive one was honest but priced for a different city. The middle one stopped answering the phone after the permit application stalled.
That wasn’t a San Francisco problem exactly. It’s an everywhere problem. But in this city it hits harder because every square foot costs so much to buy and so much to rent. When a family finally decides to build an ADU here, they’ve usually spent years saving for it and months talking about it. They need a builder who treats that decision with the weight it deserves. Russ Delmar agreed to lead this branch because he saw the same thing we did: homeowners in San Francisco weren’t being let down by a lack of options. They were being let down by a lack of straight answers. We brought the Lodgewick way of working to this city so people could get a written price before any work starts, a real arrival window, and a guarantee that’s actually in writing. That’s the whole reason the branch exists.
Russ Delmar’s Personal Connection to the ADU Trade
Russ Delmar has spent more than ten years in residential construction, and the work that stuck with him was never the biggest project. It was the small building in the backyard. He’ll tell you the first time he framed an ADU, the thing that surprised him was the quiet. A full house remodel is loud and sprawling and pulls a crew in six directions. An ADU is one room, then another room, then a roof, then it’s done. You can stand inside the shell at the end of the first week and feel the shape of the whole thing. There’s a satisfaction in that speed that he never found in larger jobs.
The materials matter to him in a personal way. He likes the smell of lumber that’s still a little green when it arrives, the weight of a properly cut beam when it drops into place. He notices when a wall is an eighth of an inch out of square because his hands have found that difference hundreds of times. The work is tactile. It runs through a day and leaves something standing at the end of it. If he weren’t leading this branch, he’d still be in the trade somewhere, probably running a small framing crew and telling whoever would listen that accessory dwelling units are the best housing idea the state of California has had in fifty years. The reason he gets out of bed isn’t complicated. A homeowner in San Francisco calls because they have a garage that leaks or a side yard that’s wasted space, and six months later there’s a little house there with someone’s aging parent in it, or someone’s adult kid saving for a down payment. That transformation is the whole trade to him. Everything else is just lumber and fasteners.
Meet Russ Delmar – The Person Behind Every Job
Russ Delmar is the Owner & Founder of the San Francisco branch of Lodgewick ADU Builders. He came up through the trades the long way, starting as a laborer and learning framing, finish work, and site management through years of hands-on building rather than a classroom. The brand behind him is the ADU company of the Kingswell family, and the standards that come with it are non-negotiable: a written price before any work starts, a real arrival window, a clean job site, and a written guarantee.
What separates Russ from a technician who shows up with a branded truck and a script is that he’s actually built these structures. He’s stood in the rain waiting for a concrete pour. He’s fixed a framing mistake at 6 a.m. before an inspector arrived. When he promises a homeowner in San Francisco that something will get done, he knows exactly what it takes to do it because he’s done every part of the job himself at some point. On weekends he works on a small wooden boat in his garage. It’s been unfinished for three years, which he’ll mention with a laugh before he talks about how straight he wants the walls on your ADU.
Our Promise to San Francisco Homeowners
Lodgewick ADU San Francisco works to the four promises every Kingswell company holds. The price is written before the work begins, not estimated and then adjusted. The arrival window we give is the window we keep. The job site is left cleaner than we found it, which in a city of small lots and shared fences matters more than people expect. And the guarantee is on paper, not spoken.
That last one matters because the guarantee has teeth. If a repair fails inside the guarantee period, we come back and fix it at no charge. We don’t re-inspect the fine print. We don’t blame the weather. A homeowner who’s been let down by a no-show contractor or a price that changed at the door deserves to know the exact terms before they sign anything. That’s The Kingswell Way: say the price before the work, show up in the window we gave, leave the place cleaner than we found it, put the guarantee in writing, and come back if it fails.
Our Credentials
We work to the Kingswell standards, which are the same in every city where the brand operates:
- State-licensed. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license their state requires. We carry the documentation and we’ll show it to you before any work starts.
- Insured & bonded. Your property and our crew are covered. We carry what the work requires, and we’ll walk you through what that covers on your specific project.
- Years of local trade experience. Russ Delmar has spent more than ten years in residential construction, much of it on ADU and small-structure work in the Bay Area.
- A strong local reputation. Homeowners in San Francisco, Oakland, and across the Bay Area have come to trust the Lodgewick way of working, and we intend to keep earning that trust one job at a time.
A license matters because building in San Francisco involves permits, inspections, and code requirements that change by neighborhood and by year. Insurance and bonding protect you from liability on your own property. And experience matters because the person who’s framed a dozen ADUs knows where the tricky corners are before they become expensive problems. Call us at (707) 760-0502 to schedule a free estimate and we’ll show you all of it in writing.
Rooted in San Francisco
San Francisco is a city of small lots and big families, of garages that haven’t held a car in twenty years and backyards that deserve better than a patch of weeds. We work in the neighborhoods people actually live in: the Richmond, the Sunset, Bernal Heights, Glen Park, Excelsior, the Mission. We know what the planning process looks like here, what the inspectors look for, and which hillside lots need extra foundation attention.
We’re not from somewhere else pretending to be local. Each Lodgewick location is an independent local business that agreed to work to the Kingswell Guarantee. The brand is national. The people who actually show up at your door are your neighbors. That’s the way the Kingswell family built this company, and it’s the way we’ll build your ADU.
Written by the team at Lodgewick ADU San Francisco, led by Russ Delmar, serving San Francisco since the branch opened in 2010.