About ZenStay
Built by a builder.
ZenStay was founded by Arvand Sabetian, an engineer, entrepreneur, and hotel developer who has spent two decades using thoughtful technology and radical transparency to make complicated industries work better. ZenStay brings that approach to boutique hospitality.
Arvand Sabetian.
Founder & CEO
Arvand is a civil engineer by training, with a degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and an entrepreneur by instinct. At 17, he founded the web-hosting company Arvixe, grew it into an eight-figure business, and sold it in 2014.
He began investing in real estate in 2012 and founded Ziprent in 2018 around a simple idea: thoughtful technology and genuine transparency can make traditionally complicated industries work better. After growing and selling Ziprent, he brought that same philosophy to boutique hospitality.
Today, as a licensed general contractor, Arvand develops hotels through GTB Group and operates them through ZenStay. Casa Iglesia, the former First Christian Church transformed into a 37-room hotel in downtown Santa Barbara, is the clearest expression of that approach. It preserves the character of a historic building while reimagining how it can be designed, built, and operated.
The team
The people behind the operation.
ZenStay brings hospitality and technology together at every stage of a property's life. Dee and Tommy work closely to launch each hotel and keep it running smoothly, connecting the guest experience, booking channels, revenue strategy, and technical infrastructure into one cohesive system.
Dee Burton.
Director of Hospitality
Dee leads ZenStay's hospitality operations and oversees the guest experience across the portfolio. She develops service standards, manages the hospitality team, readies new properties across booking channels, and ensures each stay feels thoughtful, responsive, and consistent from booking through checkout.
Tommy Wong.
Director of Technical Operations
Tommy oversees the technical systems that power ZenStay's hotels. He directs the external development team, supports revenue management, manages hotel network infrastructure, and leads the integrations and automations that connect each part of the operation. His work keeps the technology reliable, useful, and largely invisible to the guest.
Together, Dee and Tommy bring each property into the ZenStay portfolio and keep improving how it performs.
The through-line
Technology should make a stay feel effortless: never replace the people who make it warm.
The same conviction runs through everything Arvand has built: good technology and radical transparency, applied to industries that never had enough of either. In hospitality, that means contact-light hotels run by real people, and an owner model with nothing hidden.
How it shows up
One company, end to end.
We build what we run
Because we develop and operate our own hotels, every design decision is made with the guest experience and the operating model in mind.
Technology that disappears
Self check-in, smart rooms, and 24/7 human support by phone or text; the tech clears the friction so people can focus on hospitality.
Character worth preserving
An eye for adaptive reuse and historic buildings (interiors led by designer Shaliz Nakashima) turns distinctive spaces into places with a story.