Everest Hotel is one of the best known occupants of Jaya Mansions, a classic art deco building constructed in the late 1930s by S.P. Jayarama Nadar, Mercant and Councillor of the Corporation of Madras, to serve as a commercial hostel for students of the Madras Medical College. By the mid-1940s it had become commercial premises with a number of shops and establishments renting the rooms in the ground floor. Everest Lodge, as it was known, the creation of Sundaram Iyer, took the upper floors.

Located as it was midway between Central and Egmore stations, it became a very popular place of stay. There was a rooftop restaurant as well, which also functioned as the premises for the Muthialpet Sabha. It was here on a full moon night that Tiger Varadachariar is said to have performed a pallavi in Raga Poornachandrika.

Sundaram Iyer married a well-known dancer Swarna Saraswathi en secondes noces as the expression is, and the couple later moved to Delhi where they lived till their passing.

The hotel changed hands and continues to function from the same premises though ill-advised attempts at modernisation have robbed the facade of all vestiges of art deco.

An interesting aside is that Everest also ran Zoo Café, which, as the name suggests, was a restaurant at the Zoo which at the time was just behind Ripon Building, barely a stone’s throw away.