From left: Jordan Ohayon, Patricia Ohayon, Stéphane, and Jonas Ohayon
Photo credit: courtesy of the Ohayon family
For Stéphane Ohayon, entrepreneurship has never been simply about building businesses. It has been about challenging himself, recognizing opportunities, creating value, and, increasingly, passing that mindset on to the next generation. The French entrepreneur and real estate investor has spent more than 25 years building a career at the intersection of real estate, investment, retail, and business development. From operating multiple Häagen-Dazs franchises in France at a young age to advising major international brands on their expansion strategies and ultimately investing in and repositioning properties himself, Ohayon’s career has been shaped by a willingness to evolve and transform.
“Entrepreneurship has always been part of who I am,” he says. “I have always been fascinated by achievement, by the idea of reaching goals that often seem difficult or even impossible to attain.” That philosophy has guided Ohayon throughout a career marked by reinvention. But today, as he builds a new chapter in the United States, entrepreneurship has taken on another meaning: it has become a family endeavor.
From France to America
Ohayon’s decision to expand to the United States was driven not only by business opportunity but also by his children and family legacy. It began with his children. Two of his three sons studied in the United States, an experience Ohayon says he had dreamed of having himself when he was younger but could not afford. Years later, when he could give his own children that opportunity, he made it a priority.
“I promised myself that if I ever had the opportunity, I would invest in giving my children that experience,” he recalls.
As his sons began establishing their lives in America, Ohayon found himself spending more and more time in the country. His oldest son initially moved to New York before relocating to California, while his second son pursued a career in finance and accounting in the United States. At the same time, Ohayon reached a professional turning point. After decades of building his real estate business in France, completing major transactions and developing relationships with international brands, he was ready for another challenge.
“The United States represented a new challenge, a new cycle, and an opportunity to think bigger,” he says. That transition ultimately led to the creation of Opus One Investment, his family holding company in California and the platform through which the family develops, acquires, and manages projects in the United States.
For Ohayon, America’s culture of entrepreneurship felt immediately familiar. Its emphasis on ambition, innovation, and possibility reflected many of the values that had shaped his own professional life. But this time, he was no longer building alone.
Entrepreneurship as a Family Endeavor
Today, Ohayon’s children contribute to different aspects of the family’s ventures, each bringing their own expertise, ideas, and perspectives. Rather than seeing legacy purely in financial terms, Ohayon views entrepreneurship itself as something that can be passed from one generation to another, not necessarily as a prescribed career, but as a way of thinking.
Curiosity. Creativity. Ambition. The ability to recognize an opportunity and have the confidence to pursue it. These are the qualities he hopes will endure. That philosophy is now taking physical form through ABAYTA, Opus One Investment’s flagship development in West Hollywood’s Sycamore District. An intimate collection of just four fully furnished residences, ABAYTA is designed for premium corporate housing, executive stays, and long-term corporate leases. The project brings together elevated residential design, hospitality-inspired living, smart-home technology, and private outdoor spaces, reflecting Ohayon’s belief that contemporary real estate should offer more than a physical place to live.
The development also embodies what Ohayon describes as a “phygital” approach, the convergence of physical and digital experiences. He sees this philosophy increasingly shaping not only real estate, but also retail and hospitality, as technology becomes inseparable from how people experience physical environments. For Ohayon, however, ABAYTA is equally rooted in hospitality.
“Many developments focus solely on real estate. ABAYTA is rooted in hospitality,” he explains. His years working alongside premium international brands taught him that people are rarely choosing only a product. “They are buying an experience, a story, and an identity.” Even the project’s name carries a family connection. While discussing the development, one of Ohayon’s sons suggested ABAYTA, derived from the Hebrew expression meaning “the home.” The idea immediately resonated with him.
“I have always believed that successful real estate is about much more than buildings,” Ohayon says. “It is about creating experiences, identities, and emotional connections.”
In many ways, ABAYTA brings together the different chapters of his career: real estate, hospitality, premium brands, technology, investment, and now family. A project centered around the idea of home is being developed within a business that has itself increasingly become a family enterprise.
Building More Than Assets
Ohayon’s entrepreneurial trajectory has consistently been driven by an ability to anticipate change. His experience as a retailer taught him to view real estate through the lens of the businesses that occupy it. His work in commercial real estate taught him the importance of relationships, timing, and location. Investing taught him how to identify unrealized value. And his expansion into the United States has opened another chapter encompassing residential development, hospitality, and technology.
His ambitions remain significant. He wants Opus One Investment to develop differentiated projects that bring together real estate, hospitality, innovation, and lifestyle, while creating long-term value. Yet his definition of success has expanded. After more than two decades building businesses and assets, Ohayon increasingly measures what he creates not only by what he can acquire, develop, or sell, but by what can continue beyond him.
“One of my greatest sources of pride is involving my children in these ventures,” he says. “Each of them participates in different aspects of our projects, bringing their own expertise, ideas, and perspectives.”
For an entrepreneur whose career has been defined by building, perhaps the most meaningful project is now one without a conventional completion date.
“If there is one legacy I hope to leave behind, it is not simply a portfolio of assets,” Ohayon says.
“It is a culture of entrepreneurship, creativity, curiosity, and ambition that can continue through future generations.”
For Ohayon, that vision may ultimately be the most enduring measure of success: not simply what he builds, but what he inspires others to build after him. As Opus One Investment and ABAYTA mark a new chapter in his American journey, they also reflect something larger, a family story still being written, with entrepreneurship as the thread connecting one generation to the next.
