From Humble Beginnings To The Height Of Luxury: How The Abeyrathne Family Built 98 Acres To Take Ella To The World

Brothers Eranda, Chamara and Ranga have turned their parents’ hard-won tea business into Vella, one of Sri Lanka’s most dynamic hospitality, adventure and tea groups. Their secret? Treat guests’ enjoyment as the purpose, and the community as the partner.

There is a particular kind of light that falls on the hills of Ella in the early morning. It slides down the tea terraces, catches the mist rising off the valley, and settles on a cluster of thatched roofs that look as though they grew out of the hillside.

Those roofs belong to 98 Acres Resort & Spa, which the World Luxury Awards named the Best Luxury Mountain Resort in the World in 2016. What fewer people know is the story underneath them, one that begins not with luxury, but with firewood.

As someone with deep roots in Sri Lanka, I have long believed the island is one of the world’s great untold stories of resilience and reinvention. So when I sat down with Eranda and Ranga Abeyrathne, two of the three brothers behind the Vella group, I expected a hospitality story. What I got was a masterclass in purpose-driven entrepreneurship.

A Father Who Built Trust, One Load At A Time

Their father, Dharmasiri Abeyrathne, came from humble beginnings in Ella. He sold lottery tickets and newspapers. He supplied firewood to the local tea factories. He learned small-scale construction from his future father-in-law, building village schools and modest buildings.

When the Uva Halpewatte tea factory he had been supplying came up for sale, he mortgaged the family home and still came up short. Most of the town turned him down. But two established businessmen did not. “Only two of them had faith in him,” Eranda recalls, and they told him, “Okay, we will sign for you. We believe in you.”

His integrity paid off again when he went looking for a tea estate to feed the factory. The owner of one asked him what her land was worth. He told her the truth: far more than her asking price. She was so moved that she went to the bank on his behalf, and the bank manager agreed to lend him the full, fair amount. “We have faith in this guy,” the manager said. “He’s a good entrepreneur.”

Today, Mr. Dharmasiri Abeyrathne serves as Vella’s chairman.

A Mother Who Held It All Together

If their father was the engine, their mother, Nalini Rajapaksha, was the glue who held everyone and everything together. She taught school by day, packed tea for local markets in the afternoons, and kept the factory’s accounts by night.

“The money was such a necessity that nobody could rest,” Ranga says. “Even at night, she was in the books.”

She also made education non-negotiable. All three sons earned degrees abroad: Chamara at Durham, Ranga at Exeter, Eranda at Monash. They lived on tight budgets. “Sometimes in university we spent the full month’s amount in 10 days,” Eranda laughed. “That’s one of the basic things we learned: how to manage the budget you are given.”

Tea remained the foundation. In 2009, the family launched Halpé Tea, which now exports single-estate Ceylon tea to more than 30 countries.

A Rejected Visa, And A Roof That Changed Everything

It was the eldest brother, Chamara, who saw the hospitality potential in the town of Ella, which then had little more than a rest house and a trickle of backpackers. The defining design moment came by accident. Chamara’s visa applications to visit Eranda in Australia, and then Dubai, were both rejected. Frustrated, he flew to the one place that offered visas on arrival: Nepal. On a trek near Annapurna, he saw circular thatched-roof shelters built for climbers to rest. He brought the idea home, and it became the iconic silhouette of 98 Acres, which opened in 2012.

“That idea came to life because the visas were rejected,” Ranga says. “If not, he would have never gone to Nepal.”

The family started with a restaurant, then one room, then six, then twelve. “It organically grew,” says Eranda. Room rates followed demand: “What started at 10 and 20 dollars has grown into $2,500 a night at peak times,” Eranda says.

Building A World Around The Resort

From there, the family kept asking what guests would love next, often inspired by their own travels. “When we go somewhere and see something, we want to have it in our place,” Ranga explains. A trip to Bali sparked the Ravana Pool Club, which opened in 2022 as Sri Lanka’s first international pool club.

In 2019 came the Flying Ravana Adventure Park, the country’s first ERCA-certified adventure facility, followed in 2024 by the Amber Swing at Ambuluwawa near Kandy. Kiri Kōpi, their café brand, launched in Ella in 2020. In 2021, they added two luxury villas, including Walaa Kulu, a three-bedroom retreat on the spot where Ranga used to watch the dawn on his morning walks. “I thought, I’m going to build something here to live,” he says, “because I love the sunrise so much.”

The Ripple Effect: Prosperity That Stays Local

Here is where the story moves from impressive to inspiring. The business has grown from five people to around 700, plus 80 certified specialists in its adventure arm. In 2026, Vella was recognized as a Great Place to Work.

Their father insisted the wealth circulate locally. “He always taught us not to give drivers accommodation,” Eranda explains. “Find a house nearby; they get extra income.” Today, hundreds of village families earn from small guest blocks for visiting drivers. The resort keeps no fleet of its own, sending guests instead to vetted local drivers.

The training is world-class, too. “If someone has worked at 98 Acres, that’s enough for him to apply for a job at a Shangri-La or a Hilton,” Ranga says.

In my work on purpose-driven business, I often talk about the “Hope Gap,” the distance between how things are and how they could be. Too often, tourism widens that gap. The Vella model narrows it.

Growing Without Selling The Soul

The family has never taken outside investment. In a country that has weathered a pandemic, natural disasters, and political upheaval, their father’s philosophy holds. Eranda calls it “a policy of using your own wealth to recreate wealth, rather than depending on high-interest banks and debt.”

The ambitions are only getting bigger: an adventure park built around gravity, “not roller coasters,” Eranda stresses; a 30-villa wellness retreat on land with seven waterfalls; Kiri Kōpi heading to Australia and Dubai; and other projects in the pipeline.

The Purpose Hiding In Plain Sight

The brothers distilled their purpose as a company into something simple. “We feel happy when we see how people enjoy our experiences,” Ranga says.

Today, they lead by stepping back. “We are not involved in the business. We are only involved in expanding the business,” Eranda says. “They say you are who your team is. We are here today because of our teams.”

Whatever the next Abeyrathnes choose, they will inherit what Mr. Dharmasiri Abeyrathne and his wife gave his sons: proof that trust, hard work and a purpose rooted in joy can lift an entire community.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com