This week, we are excited to feature Cedric D’Hue, founder of Happy Stay WL and an OwnerRez user for the past four years. Cedric has built a successful vacation rental business that delivers memorable stays for Purdue families while giving his children the opportunity to learn hospitality and entrepreneurship firsthand.
Can you tell us a little bit about your history?
My wife, Zandra, and I have been married since 2000 after meeting in college. We lived in Indianapolis from 2000 to 2010 and then moved to the Greater Lafayette area (near Purdue University) where we live now. We have four children, currently 14, 14, 11, and 10 years old.
We read The Family Board Meeting and realized that we only have 18 summers with our kids. One of our 14-year-old twins has a God-given talent for hospitality, and our 11-year-old daughter is a natural entrepreneur. We already had a long-term rental, but our children were not involved. They had never seen it, and there was nothing for them to do to make it better or make it part of their lives. We were looking for opportunities to incorporate our rental businesses with teaching our children new talents. Similar to the book Cleaning House, we sought to cultivate our children's gifts and talents in entrepreneurship.
After staying in several short-term vacation rentals, we became inspired to incorporate those experiences into teaching our children the values and principles we want them to carry through life. Running each short-term rental provides our family a number of opportunities for our children to get involved in our short-term rental business. Our children have been involved in opening boxes, putting away house supplies, building furniture, and making up beds. They have also assisted with parking cars during home Purdue football games and selling lemonade, chips, Cub Scout popcorn, etc.
We purchased our first West Lafayette short-term rental, Historic Blue House, in 2021. We purchased our second West Lafayette short-term rental, Destination Station, in 2022. Both are walking distance to Purdue’s football stadium, Ross-Ade Stadium, and Purdue’s basketball arena, Mackey Arena.
I started co-hosting for other local short-term rental hosts in 2025. In 2026, two other local short-term rental hosts asked us if we wanted to purchase their grandfathered short-term rentals, and we jumped at the opportunity. In 2026, we also purchased an eight-unit multifamily building that is a McDonald’s parking lot away from the Purdue campus. The building is currently being used for long-term student housing, and we are planning to transition each unit to short-term rentals.
What is your background?
I have multiple degrees in chemistry, specifically analytical chemistry. I worked as a dissolution chemist, an environmental chemist, and an analytical chemist before going to law school to become a patent attorney. I have been working as a patent attorney since 2005. I see a lot of very early innovations. I translate those intangible personal property rights into patent applications and hopefully issued patents.
Were you always in VR or property management, or is this a 2nd/3rd career?
We have not always been in vacation rentals. This work has been more of a second career. We became accidental landlords during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). We moved for my wife’s job in 2010 and we would have lost a lot of money if we sold our primary residence in Indianapolis at that time.
We rented it out instead and learned about depreciation along the way. Learning about depreciation led to understanding the short-term rental loophole. We used our understanding of the short-term rental loophole to acquire a short-term rental property and use the tax credit as the down payment for the next short-term rental. We still own our initial long-term rental in addition to our short-term and mid-term rental holdings.
Are you from the geographical area where your properties are located, or did you move there later?
We live within 10 minutes of where our short-term and mid-term rentals are located. We still own our initial long-term rental outside of Indianapolis, but we purchase property locally in West Lafayette, Indiana.
If later, is there something that drew you to that area?
We were drawn to West Lafayette due to its nationally ranked high school. We purchased all of our short-term and mid-term rentals in the West Lafayette Community School Corporation school district. Our property taxes support the school system.
What do you love most about the vacation rental business?
As Christians, we value hospitality. We primarily serve parents of Purdue students who come for graduation, football, and basketball games. We enjoy the opportunity to serve others and share in some of their most memorable life experiences. We seek to provide convenient housing options to parents and grandparents of Purdue students to facilitate quality interactions.
What do you dislike the most about it?
Our local market is opposed to vacation rentals. In 2023, the City of West Lafayette passed an “Anti-Airbnb” ordinance requiring short-term rentals to petition for a variance, and in 2025, the City of West Lafayette passed an ordinance banning short-term rentals in R1 zones. But there are more vacant housing units in my market than short-term rentals in my market year-round. We hear from parents of Purdue students that there is no housing available within 25 miles of Purdue during Spring Purdue commencement.
Think about it. Your child is having one of their most important life experiences, probably one of the last experiences shared with you as parents before leaving home for good. You are from far away, and you have only been to campus a few times over the past four years. Now you are having to drive from 30 minutes away to your child’s graduation due to a lack of short-term rental housing in the area. But there are more houses for sale each summer than there are short-term rentals in my market year-round. I dislike that the City of West Lafayette banned short-term rentals based on fear, not facts.
How do you use OwnerRez to manage your business?
I love all of the functionality of OwnerRez. OwnerRez allows us to expand our communications, our operations, and our financial reporting far beyond what we would be able to do on our own. We provide a lot of hyperlocal information to guests.
We can direct messages using Rezzy AI to follow crafted answers to frequently asked questions, to provide directives that align with our hospitality goals, and ensure a consistent messaging style that highlights our desire to facilitate serving our guests. The more personalized the message, the better, and Rezzy AI’s suggestions greatly speed up our personalized responses. Adding additional units, even a boutique hotel, is a breeze with OwnerRez.
What is the most useful feature OwnerRez offers?
Rezzy AI has been wonderful to use. It has been very helpful to get detailed instructions on how to accomplish tasks within OwnerRez. It is learning my style with each draft response.
Cedric has done an outstanding job building a business that delivers exceptional stays while giving his kids the opportunity to learn. We look forward to seeing Happy Stay WL continue to grow with the addition of their upcoming boutique hotel.
