ADUs vs. Home Remodels: Burlingame’s Renewal Mindset | ADU Adventures EP017

Who Are the Best ADU Builders Serving Burlingame, CA? 
Maybe start with a better question.

Homeowners searching for the best ADU builders serving Burlingame, CA are usually asking a bigger question underneath: who can I trust with a 70, 80, or 100 year old house on the Mid Peninsula? This episode is our answer, and it starts somewhere unexpected.

Burlingame looks like it has always been a "City of Trees," but that canopy is a choice, not an accident, and the law has reinforced that choice for more than a century. We open with the surprising history: grassland turned into a cathedral of eucalyptus, then protected and continually renewed through ordinances that recommit to care rather than just preserving nostalgia. That becomes our blueprint for how to think about an older Burlingame home: not a problem to erase, but an asset to renew deliberately.

Then we get practical about why so many professional families are buying in Burlingame and what they are really purchasing when they stretch for the location. Great schools, Caltrain, and quick access to both San Francisco and Silicon Valley make Burlingame the rare place that works for a two career household. The tradeoff is that many homes carry aging plumbing, legacy electrical, dated layouts, and hidden constraints behind the walls. We lay out our whole property renovation approach: how we define it, how to sequence upgrades intelligently, and why surprises belong in planning, not construction. That planning-first discipline is also the single best filter for choosing an ADU builder in Burlingame, because the companies worth hiring find the surprises before the contract is signed.

We also dig into why an ADU often becomes the centerpiece of a long range plan, not an afterthought. When you ask the 30 year question, you are really asking about people: aging parents, a college grad returning home, an au pair, a dedicated work space, or future rental income. Planning the main house and accessory dwelling unit together creates one coherent property with real flexibility. In some cases it even makes sense to build the ADU first so your family has a place to land during the renovation.

Acton ADU has helped California families design and build custom ADUs for more than 35 years. If you are planning an ADU or whole property renovation in Burlingame or anywhere in the Bay Area, reach out today for a free consultation.

Intro and Outro music

This episode of ADU Adventures: Building in Your Backyard was sponsored by Acton ADU—California's experts in high-quality, long-lasting accessory dwelling units (ADUs). With 35+ years of experience, they handle everything from design to permits to construction, making the whole process seamless for homeowners.

Thinking about building an ADU? Visit ActonADU.com or call (408) 539-1908 to get started.

Thanks for listening—see you next time!

Acton ADU – The Home of the Build Ready ADU, Serving California Homeowners for More Than 35 Years

With more than 35 years of design-build experience, Acton ADU specializes exclusively in Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). Based in Campbell, California, we serve homeowners across more than 80 jurisdictions  throughout in the San Francisco Bay Area, the East Bay, and the San Gabriel Valley.

We design and build high-quality, traditionally site-built backyard homes, delivering turnkey ADU solutions that save time and money without sacrificing quality. As the home of the Build Ready ADU, we offer curated, pre-designed plans built around multigenerational living and long-term property value, with pre-approved options in select cities for faster timelines.

Why Homeowners Choose Acton ADU:

• More than 35 years of design-build expertise
• Build Ready ADUs: pre-designed backyard homes for faster timelines and controlled costs
• Signature Series, Investor Series, and Aging-in-Place Series plans
• Traditionally site-built to California residential standards, not prefab
• Expert zoning and permitting guidance in every community we serve
• 5-star reviews from California homeowners
• Financing assistance to help you plan your investment

Whether you are building a mother-in-law suite, granny flat, or casita, Acton ADU is your trusted partner in creating a backyard home your family will rel...

Transcript

Welcome To The City Of Trees

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome back to ADU Adventures Building in Your Backyard. I'm James, and today we're visiting Burlingame, California. Here's something most people don't know about this city of trees. There weren't any trees originally. If you stand on El Camino Real today, under that Cathedral of Eucalyptus trees, it feels almost ancient, permanent. Like it has always been there in this way. But a century and a half ago, most of this area was open grassland running down to the bay, which means that nearly every tree you see in Burlingame is standing there because somebody planted it, on purpose. And this is the part I love. The town wrote it into the law that nobody was allowed to tear them down. That's the story I want to tell you today, because it's really a story about trees. It's a story about a community that decided over and over again for more than a hundred years that the right move is to tend what you have instead of ripping it out and starting over. And if you own a home in Burlingame, or anywhere in the Mid Peninsula really, I'd argue that's exactly the decision sitting in front of you right now. Not about your trees, but about your house. Today's episode is about whole property renovations, why so many professional families are choosing Burlingame, why the homes there are often 70, 80, or even a hundred years old, and why the smartest of those families aren't tearing those homes down exactly. They're renewing them. And very often an ADU is part of that plan. Then at the end I'm going to tell you a story about our founder Stan Acton that involves climbing ropes, a very long way off the ground, and trees that were already ancient when Burlingame was still open grassland. So let's dive in. According to the city of Burlingame's own history, the city was named after Anson Burlingame, an attorney and diplomat, and it was settled by wealthy San Franciscans looking for a better climate. Today it's a city of roughly thirty one thousand people on the peninsula, with a shoreline on San Francisco Bay.

How Burlingame Chose Tree Protection

SPEAKER_00 2:37

But here's the wild part. The man the city is named after barely ever saw it. As the local history compiled by Burlingame Properties tells it, Anson Burlingame visited exactly once in 1866 as a guest of the banker William Ralston. Ralston talked up the peninsula so convincingly that Burlingame bought roughly a thousand acres of land for fifty four thousand seven hundred and fifty seven dollars and fifty cents. Then he continued on to China, and he never came back. In eighteen sixty eight, Ralston named the land after his friend anyway. So the name came first, and the town came later. And in between came the trees. That same local history records that in eighteen seventy five the famed landscape architect John McLaren, the same man who would later shape the Golden Gate Park, began planting trees on the El Camino Real, and to mark the entrances of the great estates. Most of those trees are still standing today. Think about that. The oldest living residents of Burlingame were planted as good design decision before the city existed. Then history gave the peninsula a shove. After the nineteen oh six earthquake, San Franciscans came south looking for solid ground and a fresh start, and the town incorporated in nineteen oh eight. And according to the city's documented history, one of the very first things the brand new Board of Trustees did was pass an ordinance prohibiting the cutting, injuring, or destroying of trees. Today Burlingame calls itself the City of Trees, on the strength of more than eighteen thousand public trees. Now you might hear that and think, okay, charming. A tree law from nineteen oh eight, but this is where it stops being a history lesson and starts being a philosophy. Because Burlingame never let that commitment fossilize. The city's tree protection has been rewritten, strengthened, and renewed generation after generation. The modern ordinance traces back to the Heritage Tree Ordinance of nineteen seventy five, and the City Council repealed and replaced it with an updated version as recently as december sixteenth, twenty twenty four. That's not preservation of nostalgia. That's a hundred and sixteen year old promise that keeps getting re signed. And look at what the law actually protects today. According to the City of Burlingame's Parks Division, private trees on your own property are protected once they reach fourteen inches in diameter. You need a permit not just to remove a protected tree, but even to prune more than twenty five percent of it. The city holds tree city USA status and maintains a full street tree inventory. Here's the detail I keep coming back to, though. Burling game does not protect its canopy by freezing it in place. Trees get pruned, trees get watered, trees get inspected. And when one truly reaches the end of its life, it gets replaced so that that canopy continues. The commitment was never nothing changes. The commitment is everything gets cared for. Tend to what you have. Renew it deliberately. Pass it on better than you found it. Hold on to that idea because we're about to talk about your house. Halfway to everywhere. Let me tell you who's moving to Burlingame and why. Open a map. Burlingame sits almost exactly halfway between downtown San Francisco and the heart of Silicon Valley, with Caltrain running right up its spine in San Francisco International Airport next door. The city's own history notes that proximity to SFO powered its growth back in the 1960s and 1970s. Today that same geography solves a very modern problem. The two-career

Why Families Buy Older Homes Here

SPEAKER_00 6:27

household, where one person heads north in the morning and the other heads south. For a lot of professional couples, Burlingame isn't a compromise. It's the answer. And the numbers back that up. According to the Census Report's profile on Burlingame, built on American community survey data, the median household income here is $174,000, and 64.2% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. That's nearly double the national average. This is a city of engineers, physicians, attorneys, founders, and people who fly out of SFO on Monday and walk to dinner on Burlingame Avenue on Friday night. Now, here's what those families are actually buying when they buy here. According to Zillow's Home Value Index, the typical home value in Burlingame is about $2,500,000. And what does $2.5 million get you in Burlingame? Very often, it gets you a house that is older than your grandparents. According to U.S. Census Bureau housing data compiled by.2 homes, the median Burlingame home was built in 1957, and nearly 30% of the city's homes went up before 1940. Let that sink in. In one of the most sought after residential markets in America, roughly one in three homes predates World War II. So picture the moment. A family stretches to buy a Burlingame house because the location is perfect. The schools are strong, the streets are lined with hundred-year-old trees. And when they walk through their new front door and meet a kitchen from a different era, a floor plan designed for a family that watched television in black and white, and systems behind the walls that have been quietly aging for 70 years. The family is standing at the fork in the road, and it's the same fork Burlingame itself has faced over and over since 1908. Option one, clear cut, tear the house down, start from bare dirt. Or option two, do what Burlingame has always done with things that it loves, renew them. I want to be honest with you because that's how we do things here. There are properties where starting over is genuinely the right call, but in a city like Burlingame, the case for renewal is powerful. The character of these old homes, the deep lots, the established gardens, the mature trees that remember, you couldn't remove without a permit anyway. The bones are often good, and what's tired is actually everything attached to the bones. And that's exactly what a property renovation is for. So let's talk about the renovation thesis. Let me define the terms because I want to be as precise as I can. A whole property renovation is not a kitchen remodel, it's not a bathroom refresh. It's stepping back and looking at the entire property, the main house, the systems inside it, the yard around it, as one asset within one plan. What does this property need to do for my family

The Whole Property Renovation Thesis

SPEAKER_00 9:27

for the next 30 years? And then what's the smartest sequence of work to get it done? And you may ask yourself, why does that matter so much with older homes? Well, because a 70-year-old house keeps its secrets behind its walls, original plumbing that's been narrowing from the insides for decades, an electrical panel designed for a world before EV charges, induction ranges and heat pumps, insulation standards from an era when energy was cheap and nobody had heard of Title XXIV. None of that is a reason to panic at all, but all of it is a reason to plan. This is where our philosophy at Acton ADU comes in, and longtime listeners will recognize this. We believe surprises belong in the planning phase, not the construction phase. Before design ever starts, you study the property itself, the year it was built, its permit history, what the city will require the moment you touch certain systems. You find the story of the house first, so the budget and the timeline you commit to are grounded in your actual property, not in random averages. We call the result no surprises. And an older Burling game home that is discipline worth its weight in gold. But there is a part that surprises people, and it's the reason this show is called what it's called. In our experience, when families plan a whole property renovation, an ADU is often part of that picture. Not as an afterthought either, but as the centerpiece of the plan. Now let's think about why that is. You're already thinking about the property as a whole, and the 30-year question almost always has people in it. Where do your parents live when they age? Where does your college graduate land while they get on their feet in the most expensive job market in the country? Where does the au pair stay? Where do you work when you're not flying out of SFO? Could part of this property earn income someday? That's family integrity planning. The conversation we start with every project. Who lives here year one? Who might live here in year 15? A whole property renovation answers that for the main house. An ADU answers it for your backyard. And planning them together as one project means the property comes out the other side as a single, coherent home with lots of flexibility. A home that lives better for your family now, can earn you something maybe in the future, and absolutely grows in value for whoever comes next. And there's a practical note for anyone planning both at once. This is exactly the situation our Build Ruddy Library was made for, which is more than a hundred ADU plans in different sizes and configurations, each one already designed,

Why An ADU Belongs In The Plan

SPEAKER_00 12:17

refined, and pressure tested with curated interior and exterior packages to match. Families doing whole property renovations often choose an ADU from that library, and it makes enormous sense. Your custom design energy, your decision-making energy goes into the main house where your family's daily life happens. For the ADU, you choose from excellence instead of starting a second blank page. Two projects, one plan, no drift. One property tended as a whole, Burlingame would approve. Another thing to consider is that when you're adding an ADU to your property renovation, the ADU often can come first. And the reason for it is because when you're doing a whole house renovation, it's really tough to live in that house. Walls are gone, floors are gone. Ultimately, you need a place to land. So at Acton ADU, we often advise people, and this is the way they end up going, that maybe they should build that ADU first before tackling the project or the main house. At least they'll have somewhere to live for the year that it takes to renovate or rebuild a new home. Now the heart of it, the tree climber. I promised you a story about Stan Acton and trees, and here it is. Stan is a professional tree climber. And I don't mean apple trees. I don't mean the kind of tree you prune from a ladder. I mean red woods. Old growth giants reaching hundreds of feet into the sky, trees that were already alive a thousand years ago. Trees that were standing before this country existed, before Ralston ever showed Anson Burlingame the peninsula, before

Stan Acton’s Redwood Lesson And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 13:57

anyone planted the first eucalyptus on El Camino Real. Think about what that work teaches a person. You're on a rope, high in a living thing that has outlasted forty generations of human beings before it. You cannot force a tree like that, you can't rush it. You learn to read it, to respect its structure, to work with what's grown rather than against it. You prune with intention because every cut is permanent, and you come down at the end of the day with a very particular kind of reverence for things that took a long, long time to become what they are. Stan actually carried that reverence out of the canopy and into building homes. You can see it in the Build Ready Library itself, a library that isn't designed in a sprint. It's grown, plan by plan, year by year, each design refined and proven before it earns its place. The way a healthy grove fills in, when you choose from it, you're choosing from something that has been cultivated, not something that has been rushed. A city that wrote reverence for growing things into its very first laws, a builder who learned his craft hundreds of feet in the living wood older than the calendar, I don't think it's a stretch to say they'd recognize each other. Your home, your property, the life your family builds in it, these are growing things too. They deserve people who tend them that way. Thank you for spending this time with me today. Whether you've been with us since episode one or you just recently found the show, because you're looking for ideas about whole property renovation in Burlingame, I'm genuinely glad you're here. If today's episode got you thinking about your own property differently, at the house, the yard, or the years ahead, all as one picture, here's one of your next steps. Acton ADU carries more than 35 years of design build legacy. Home remodels, custom homes, home property renovations, and of course, ADUs. We've been serving homeowners across California, from the Bay Area to LA County, and we don't just build ADUs. We build homes that last and legacies. Family first, transparent, with no surprises. Visit actinadu.com or call 408-5391908 for a free consultation anywhere in California. No pressure, just a real conversation about your property, your family, and your goals. Thanks again. I'm James, and this has been ADU Adventures Building in the Backyard. I'll see you out there.