Mimi Oliver is in a position to continue her grandfather’s lifetime mission — innovating hospitality concepts in extended-stay and all-suite hotels. Her grandfather, Jack DeBoer, was a hospitality visionary, beginning with the opening of the first Residence Inn in 1976 in Wichita. He went on to launch Summerfield Suites, Candlewood Suites and Value Place (later rebranded as WoodSpring Suites) and has long been considered an industry pioneer.
In 2014, DeBoer announced what he called an industry first: an unfurnished hotel room. He made it a core element of his newest brand — WaterWalk, a two-option lodging product that featured traditional furnished units (called “Stay”) as well as unfurnished ones (called “Live”), the latter targeted at long-stay guests who want to design and decorate their own spaces.
DeBoer died in 2021 at age 90 and has been replaced by Oliver who, after a career in finance, realized that passion for hospitality was a family trait and joined her grandfather’s business in 2016. As CEO of WaterWalk, she is now expanding the brand rapidly with a Gen 2.0 version developed last year that adapts DeBoer’s original model to make it more appealing to developers and customers.
In an interview with HNN, Oliver said the original prototype comprised two buildings — one for traditional furnished rooms and the other for the unfurnished units. Now properties have one L-shaped building — typically with 126 rooms on three acres, rather than the original five. The unfinished rooms are in the “leg” portion of the “L.” The company, she said, is looking to suburban markets and other areas — heavily but not exclusively in the Sunbelt and southeastern U.S., where there is substantial extended-stay demand.
The original design saw the unfurnished room building as a multi-family development. Now the entire property functions as a hotel with no need to sign leases, and all the multi-family legal processes have been eliminated to make the product much simpler to develop.
Typically, 60% of rooms are furnished and 40% unfurnished, but there is flexibility in that mix and it can be changed annually based on market demand and conditions. At the Atlanta property, for instance, stronger demand for extended-stay lodging meant starting with 70% furnished rooms.
Oliver calls the unfurnished rooms “extended stay on steroids” — providing apartment style living but with all the amenities and services of a hotel, including ease of booking. There are several options for installing furniture, which the company calls "BYOF" or bring your own furniture. WaterWalk partners with Cort furniture for furniture rentals; or customers can handle the process themselves.
There are multiple market guest segments that are interested in the unfurnished rooms, Oliver said. Many involve relocations or training, others are digital nomads, and there are many traveling nurses.
“These are people in transition in their life who are looking for flexibility,” she said.
There is a minimum of 90 days stay for an unfurnished room and no minimum stay for the traditional room.
“It is Jack’s vision that we are executing,” said Oliver, referring to her grandfather. “He was ahead of the curve again when he saw the growing need for flexibility in the market.”
While other extended-stay hotels have evolved to focus on short-term stays with averages stays of three or four nights, WaterWalk is looking to much longer stays, she said. The unfurnished room stay averages 300 nights while for furnished rooms, it’s 100 nights.
WaterWalk owns 10 of the 14 existing properties with the others franchised. All are managed by Island Hospitality, a West Palm Beach company, though franchises are not mandated to work with them.
“We wanted to own a bunch in the beginning to show we believe in the concept,” Oliver said. ”This is not a typical development, and we wanted to prove that it worked. “
In the future, she said, she would like to see 70-80% of the properties franchised.
There is no food and beverage or meeting space in the hotels, as the brand really focuses on a lean operating model. There are nine or 10 employees at a second-generation hotel. However, there are upscale kitchens and a washer and driver in every unit to make it feel ”like a true residential living experience,” Oliver said.
The newer prototypes are elevated in finishes, design, higher quality furniture and fitness centers, and an upgraded lobby with a coffee bar and a library lending wall. The lobby — called the Living Room — has games and game areas, work stations and big glass windows. An outdoor living area called The Backyard has grills and cornhole sets, and the Atlanta property offers pickleball courts. There are pools in most locations.
A large percentage of the business comes from national corporate accounts, with the guest’s company paying the bills. Most of the corporate customers book furnished rooms, although there are some on the unfurnished side. There is a bit of leisure business in the hotel rooms based on seasonality, “but that is not our focus,” Oliver said.
The hotel is staffed 24/7, but the front-desk associate might be doing something elsewhere in the hotel and available when called. There is a director of sales at each location, looking for traditional “backyard” sales.
Newer properties have studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom layouts. All buildings are new except one so far, but the company is actively looking for conversions.
On the furnished side, WaterWalk is competing with brands such as Homewood Suites by Hilton, Staybridge Suites, Hyatt House and Residence Inn and scores revenue per available room indexes similar to those flags, Oliver said. Because there are only 70 to 80 rooms on the furnished side, there tend to be higher occupancies and rates.
The goal, she said is to have 50 properties open in the next few years with a secondary goal to have more than one location in some markets for efficiency.
The WaterWalk brand name comes from a large development the family owns in downtown Wichita near the Arkansas River called WaterWalk. Since DeBoer was a practical businessman, he moved ahead with that brand because it was already in use.
As for Oliver, she said she didn’t develop her passion for hotels and hospitality until after a career in finance and banking, although she was always fascinated by DeBoer, who she calls “ a great storyteller.” She did an internship at a WoodSpring Suites early on and also worked at the corporate office. But she went into banking after college and ended up working in commercial real estate. She worked on several large hotel deals and saw it was “a cool business.”
DeBoer, she said, always wanted someone from the family involved in his enterprise and when she called him to say she was ready, he was eager for her to come on board. She moved from New York to Wichita, where that first Residence Inn opened almost 50 years ago.
(Corrected on Oct. 25 to update the brand names of WaterWalk's two lodging products in the second paragraph.)