How Benson ADU San Francisco Was Born in San Francisco
We opened our San Francisco branch of Benson ADU Builders because this city needed something it wasn’t getting. San Francisco has some of the strictest building codes in California, some of the oldest housing stock, and more homeowners wanting accessory dwelling units than almost anywhere else in the state. What it didn’t have was enough local teams willing to put a written price on the table before the first board came off the truck.
Troy Eastman came on to lead this branch after spending years watching Bay Area homeowners get run through the same frustrating loop: three different prices from three different contractors, none of them in writing, all of them climbing once the project was underway. He saw a homeowner in the Outer Sunset wait months for a granny flat that was promised in weeks. He saw another family in the Richmond District hand over a deposit and never see the crew again. That’s not how you build trust in a neighborhood. When the opportunity came to bring Benson ADU Builders to San Francisco and run it to The Relay Standard, Troy took it without hesitating. The brand had a system he believed in: book without phone tag, show up on a live arrival time you can track, send photos of the work before and after, and put every dollar in writing before anything starts. Our job was to bring that system to San Francisco and staff it with people who know this city block by block.
Troy Eastman’s Personal Connection to the ADU Trade
Troy got into this work the way a lot of people get into something real: by being around it long enough that it stopped feeling like a job and started feeling like a craft. He spent his early years in construction absorbing everything, the smell of fresh-cut framing lumber in the morning, the particular sound a level makes when it clicks true, the way sunlight hits a freshly taped drywall seam at the end of a long day. Somewhere in those years, ADUs stopped being a side corner of the trade and became the part he cared about most.
There’s something about accessory dwelling units that gets under your skin if you’re paying attention. You’re not just adding square footage. You’re giving a family a place for aging parents to live close but not on top of them. You’re giving a young couple a way to afford a mortgage in a city where that math barely works otherwise. You’re giving someone a home office that isn’t the kitchen table. Troy has walked through finished ADUs in Bernal Heights where a retired father was settling into a space built just for him, and he’s stood in backyards in the Sunset where a new unit meant a daughter could move home without giving up her independence. Those moments stay with you.
What gets him out of bed is the part most people never see: the planning. He loves sitting down with a homeowner, looking at a sloped San Francisco lot or a tight walkway or a garage that’s been collecting boxes for twenty years, and figuring out what’s actually possible. Not what a generic template says is possible, but what works for that specific lot, that specific family, that specific budget. The problems are different on every street. That’s what keeps it interesting. If he weren’t doing this, he’d probably still be building something with his hands. The trade doesn’t let go easily.
Meet Troy Eastman – The Person Behind Every Job
Troy Eastman is the Owner & Founder of this San Francisco branch of Benson ADU Builders. He came up through the construction trades the old way, learning on real job sites from people who held him to a standard, not from a manual. He knows San Francisco’s neighborhoods, its permit office rhythms, its microclimates, its weird lots, its hundred-year-old foundations, and the particular challenge of getting materials up a narrow Marina District alleyway.
He’s not a rotating technician from a corporate roster. He’s the person who sets the tone for every project this branch takes on, and he holds himself to the same standard he asks of every pro working under our name: show up when you say you will, do the work like it’s your own house, and put the price in writing before anything starts. Outside of work, Troy is the kind of person who notices how a building is put together even when he’s off the clock. He’ll walk by a job site and spot the detail someone got wrong. He can’t turn it off. That’s exactly the person you want paying attention to your ADU.
He doesn’t ask a homeowner to commit to anything he hasn’t explained in plain English first. That’s personal.
Our Promise to San Francisco Homeowners
The Relay Standard is the code we work to, and it’s not a poster on the wall. It’s five specific promises. Book in a tap, no phone tag. Give you a live arrival time, not a four-hour window. Send photos of the work, before and after. Put the price in writing before we start. Text a digital invoice you can pay from the link. If that sounds simple, that’s because it is. The industry made it complicated. We didn’t.
Every Benson ADU San Francisco job is covered by The Relay Visibility Guarantee. What that means in practice is you always know who is coming, when they’ll be there, and what it will cost. No change orders at the door. No price that grows while the project does. No wondering where the crew is. We plan your extra space in writing, we price it in writing, and we stand behind it.
Our Credentials
Benson ADU San Francisco is a local branch of Benson ADU Builders, the ADU company of the Relay Home Co. family. Every pro working under our name is required to hold the license and insurance their state requires. We’re insured and bonded, and that coverage stays current. Our team carries strong local experience in San Francisco’s specific building environment, from hillside foundation work to the city’s ADU ordinance and its permit pathway.
- Licensing: Every pro on the job is required to carry the license California requires for the scope of work they perform.
- Insurance & Bonding: Insured and bonded, with coverage maintained as a condition of working under our name.
- Local Experience: A team that knows San Francisco’s neighborhoods, lots, permitting, and building quirks, not a rotating cast learning the city for the first time.
- Reputation: Built one written estimate at a time in the communities we serve across the Bay Area.
Why does this matter to you? Because someone walking into your home to plan a six-figure ADU should be accountable to more than a handshake. A license means the state has set a minimum bar for competence. Insurance and bonding mean you’re protected if something goes wrong. Local experience means the person reading your plans understands what a San Francisco hillside lot or a Potrero Hill garage conversion actually demands. Credentials aren’t decoration. They’re your leverage.
If you’re weighing bids and one contractor can’t show you these basics, that tells you everything. Call us at (424) 328-5746 and we’ll show you ours in writing.
Rooted in San Francisco
We work in the neighborhoods where our neighbors live. From the wide lots of the Sunset to the steep streets of Noe Valley, from the Marina’s tight garages to Glen Park’s hillside backyards, San Francisco isn’t a service area on a map to us. It’s where we drive the same roads, weather the same fog, and sit in the same permit lines as the people we work for. When a homeowner in Bernal Heights asks whether their foundation can handle a second story, we know the soil and the slope they’re talking about. That’s not something you learn from a franchise manual. That’s something you learn from being here.
This branch exists because San Francisco homeowners deserve an ADU builder that treats clarity as a requirement, not a favor. We’re proud to be the local face of a brand that’s been doing this since 2006.
Written by Troy Eastman, Owner at Benson ADU San Francisco, serving San Francisco and the Bay Area.