Calgary Herald
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
As the city grows older, more businesses are celebrating long anniversaries -- but 40 years in retail is a milestone that not too many get to share. Abbas Keshmiri is justifiably proud that House of Persian Rugs started by his late father Ali in a tiny 800-square-foot space near the old city hall in 1968 is still flourishing.
Its history is a remarkable tale of immigrant grit and determination and pride of product.
Ali and his family had left Iran and lived in Germany before entering Canada at the old Calgary airport in 1966. They figured that a new environment, culture and social experiences as well as the cold would take a time to get used to -- but not being able to find work caused some real hardships.Ali eventually got work but it was in Vauxhall as a potato farm labourer. With no running water or other basic necessities, life was hard. After a year and a half, he decided to try Calgary again and it was while pounding the downtown pavement looking for employment that he realized that there was no store selling quality Persian carpets.
Coming from a culturally rich country and having stayed in Hanover and Hamburg where many of the citizens were "carpet educated," he saw a business opportunity. He asked his brother in Iran to send him half a dozen carpets. That was the start of what today is Canada's largest supplier of genuine hand-knotted Persian and Oriental carpets.
Working from home, Ali sold the first small shipment within the month and ordered more. As Calgarians began to appreciate the art, beauty and craftsmanship of the carpets, sales climbed and the family prospered.
He opened his first store and then was able to move into bigger space in the Grain Exchange Building and eventually into a prime corner space in the historic Lougheed Building. House of Persian Rugs remained there for the next 25 years until renovations forced a move to its current address at 221 10th Ave. S.W., where more than 5,000 pieces are kept in inventory.
Using Calgary as his base, Ali travelled the country developing a large and loyal clientele. He also had to travel extensively to search out and develop relationships with weavers in many remote areas of Iran, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Tibet and China.
Meanwhile, son Abbas had graduated in clinical pharmacy and had returned to postrevolution Iran to help the people in his homeland. He stayed there a total of 14 years, but when his father's age began to take a toll on his travel needs, Abbas answered his father's request and came back to Calgary.
He had worked in the store and around carpets since childhood and was well educated in the art of carpet making. After Ali passed away in 2005 on one of his buying trips while visiting the city where he was born, Mashad, Abbas took over the company. He says last year was its most successful.
The new location has been a big help, but so has the interest here in buying functional pieces of art. And the increasing number of homes with hardwood floors means a quality carpet is needed to anchor a room's design.
The specialty of the store is still in finding the very best authentic, hand-knotted silk rugs.
Hanging on the wall of the store is a 400-year-old Khotan carpet from East Turkistan, valued at $150,000 and Abbas also has for sale a silk carpet containing over 18 million knots at over $100,000. But we are talking of rugs that do not wear out and in fact become better with age, appreciating in value; many take up to five years to make.
The store also sells other one-of-a-kind handmade rugs from wool and hemp and the hair of camels and yak. The key is being handmade and today it is Abbas who journeys to select them from his weavers. But he is assured of first pick, can demand the best pricing without the use of a middleman, and insists on the highest lanolin content.
The store is in the good hands of sales and marketing manager Ernie Ouano while Abbas travels and recently an in-store master weaver from Iran who can repair and weave was added to the staff.
Abbas runs a very good business here, but part of his heart is always with his native land and he has established a weaver apprenticeship/education fund there.
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David Parker appears Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at 403-830-4622 or e-mail info@davidparker.ca
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