He grew up inside the disciplined world of pharmaceutical distribution, a family enterprise that expanded from a single Davangere medical store in 1979 into a multi-city group, later acquired by a national healthcare platform that went on to list on India's stock exchanges. Then Chethan M P, together with co-founder Sowmya Chethan, bet on a hillside of coffee and pepper outside Chikkamagaluru. The result is The Silver Sky Hotels & Resorts, a ten-acre plantation retreat quietly redrawing the map of luxury travel in Karnataka's coffee country.
“Our guests don’t check in, they disappear into 10 acres of coffee forest and come back to themselves.”
Chethan M P
The family name was already synonymous with dependability in Central Karnataka in an entirely different aisle. It began in 1979 with Chethana Medicals, a Davangere store founded by Chethan's father, Mr. K E Prakash, which grew into a group spanning Chethana Pharma, Chirag Pharma, Chirag Agencies and a Gulbarga arm. Chethan's apprenticeship started in childhood and turned formal in 2009, when he joined the business full-time. In 2017 he took the reins of the Gulbarga operation, running it through to the eventual Entero transaction even as, from 2018–19, he was simultaneously breaking ground on a project 400 kilometres away in Chikkamagaluru.
As India's pharmaceutical distribution industry consolidated, the family group corporatised in 2019–20 and was acquired by Entero Healthcare Solutions, one of India's largest healthcare distribution platforms, which listed on India's stock exchanges in February 2024. For the family, it validated a four-decade legacy. For Chethan, it was the capital and freedom to ask, alongside Sowmya, what a second act could look like.
The pull of the land had shown itself earlier: in 2016, transforming 50 barren acres at Harapanahalli into an arecanut plantation taught Chethan soil, seasons and patience no balance sheet could. Chikkamagaluru, the birthplace of Indian coffee, was long loved by domestic travellers but underserved at the genuinely luxury end visitors could find a bed among the plantations, rarely world-class dining and full-service spa and event spaces in one address. The search for the right land took eight months before Chethan and Sowmya settled on Kalledevarapura, named for the silver trees rising above the coffee canopy.
Construction broke ground in 2018–19 and opened in 2022, built within a working plantation rather than on cleared land. Chethan and Sowmya co-founded the venture together, sharing overall leadership from the first blueprint to the guest experience philosophy and hiring culture that define the resort today. Not a single tree was felled cottage placement and pathways were routed around the plantation instead. Accommodation ranges from Coffee Cottages to Serenity Suites; The Silver Spoon and The Silver Peg anchor dining and evenings, The Smudge Spa draws on Ayurvedic tradition, and The Spruce and The Sunset host weddings and events. The build ran headlong into the pandemic, with Chethan managing Gulbarga operations through the week and a remote construction site on weekends. The hardest call, they say, was never clearing a tree — even when it would have been cheaper.
For Chethan and Sowmya, luxury has little to do with chandeliers it is space, silence and authenticity: a dawn walk through a working plantation, seasonal regional food, service that anticipates rather than performs.
The resort now employs more than 75 people, many from the surrounding region; leadership style and local-hiring detail are still to be confirmed. For four consecutive years it has ranked among top-rated properties globally on platforms such as TripAdvisor, with exact award names to be confirmed for print. In mid-2026, The Silver Sky represented Karnataka's boutique hospitality sector at Inspirations 2026 in London and Munich, meeting senior travel advisors and buyers from the UK and Europe part of a push to position Chikkamagaluru as a serious destination for global experiential travel.
Additional cottages are underway this year, without compromising the founding rule of minimal disturbance to the plantation. Chethan and Sowmya expect the next five years to bring richer estate experiences, more international guests, and stronger direct relationships with the global travel trade. They believe Indian luxury hospitality is moving from opulence to authenticity, with technology felt only in seamless bookings and quiet personalisation — never in place of human warmth.
“Entrepreneurship taught me that no plan survives contact with the monsoon. You plan hard and then you adapt harder.”
Chethan M P
From the medicine counters of Davangere to the coffee mists of Chikkamagaluru, the through-line in Chethan and Sowmya's story is conviction: that trust, built patiently and delivered daily, is the only durable business model. Second acts are not stumbled upon they are built, acre by acre, detail by detail, under a silver sky.
Follow us on Google News