Thanks to all the people who responded to our October newsletters, opting to go green by submitting their email addresses and having their names removed from our mailing lists.
The email address drawn was that of Geoff and Lori Dyer of Calgary.
Congratulations, Geoff & Lori!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Photos - House of Persian Rugs' 40th Anniversary
The Venue (1)
The Venue (2)
The Venue (3)
The musicians: Tehran Project, Amir Amiri (santur) and Linling Hsu (violin)
Alex Dampsey , Sue Dampsey & Meaghan Dampsey. Sue Dampsey is the winner of our 40th Anniversary Celebration door prize, an Imperial Tabriz, wool and silk rug, worth $8,000.00
Gary Ankerman, Mahmood Jafari & Wayne Steer (all with Canadian Red Cross) and Abbas Keshmiri (President: House of Persian Rugs)
Jacqueline Corea, Ashley Dasent, Reena Sotropa
Larry Handy, Abbas Keshmiri, Shona Gillis, Sharon Handy & Sherri Gillis
Morag MacLellan & Susan Stark
William R. Pieschel (Parlee McLaws LLP) & his lovely wife, Sydney
Johannes & Sabina Thiessen
Margaret & Hon. George H. Cook with Abbas Keshmiri
Alexis Bahry & Angus MacKenzie
Emad Keshmiri and Ali Keshmiri
Abbas Keshmiri, President & Ernie Ouano, Sales & Marketing Manager
Ernie Ouano intruduces Master Weaver Javad Karamkhani
Master Weaver Javad Karamkhani demonstrates the art of the weave
Jacqueline Corea, Ashley Dasent, Reena Sotropa
Larry Handy, Abbas Keshmiri, Shona Gillis, Sharon Handy & Sherri Gillis
Morag MacLellan & Susan Stark 
William R. Pieschel (Parlee McLaws LLP) & his lovely wife, Sydney
Johannes & Sabina Thiessen
Margaret & Hon. George H. Cook with Abbas Keshmiri
Alexis Bahry & Angus MacKenzie
Emad Keshmiri and Ali Keshmiri
Abbas Keshmiri, President & Ernie Ouano, Sales & Marketing Manager
Ernie Ouano intruduces Master Weaver Javad Karamkhani
Master Weaver Javad Karamkhani demonstrates the art of the weave
Amanda Postey & Elizabeth Horvat
Fred & Diane Sebastian
Debbie Eloschuk & Lene Clayton
Marguerite & Hans Paulsen
Amanda Faulkner & Anette Cook
Lolita & Ernie Ouano with daughter Sandy Perron (Jayman Master Builders)
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
House of Persian Rugs celebrates 40 years in style
October 8th, 2008
CALGARY, AB: Local family-owned business, House of Persian Rugs, today marks 40 years of bringing the world’s finest, authentic, hand-knotted Persian and Oriental carpets to the people of Calgary.
“For four decades now, my family’s enduring passion has been to travel to the furthest reaches of the globe in search of the most skilled weavers and finest hand-knotted Persian and Oriental carpets. This year, we pay homage to our humble beginnings forty years ago”, says Abbas Keshmiri, owner and President of House of Persian Rugs.
House of Persian Rugs is the life’s work of Calgary’s Keshmiri family. The company was founded by the late Ali Keshmiri in 1968, shortly after immigrating with his family to Canada from his native Iran. He brought with him a passion for the beautiful carpets of his homeland. His first shipment was a mere six carpets, which he sold in a month. Eventually, Ali moved the business out of his home and into larger and larger stores, as Calgary and the rest of Canada fell in love with the beauty and tradition of hand-knotted carpets.
Today, with roughly 5,000 traditional, transitional and contemporary rugs designs in its collection, the company has grown to become one of Canada’s largest suppliers of authentic, hand-knotted Persian and Oriental carpets. The company is now managed by son Abbas, who continues to run the family business as owner and president, and still makes regular trips to Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Nepal, China, India, Tibet and Pakistan to source the rugs directly from the weavers.
The company is celebrating their 40th anniversary with a special event tonight at Calgary’s Artists of the World art gallery as a way to show appreciation to their valued customers and interior design partners. The event will feature Persian cuisine, musicians, an exclusive anniversary collection of carpets, and a live carpet weaving demonstration by their master weaver. The gallery was chosen as the ideal setting to showcase the rugs as unique, one-of-a-kind works of art, as well as provide attendees with ample style and design inspiration.
“We’ve been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to share our love and knowledge of the centuries-old tradition of carpet weaving with the people of Calgary for the past four decades. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our friends, valued customers and design partners for not just their business over the years, but also their friendship. We eagerly look forward to the next forty years.”
For more information about the House of Persian Rugs story, please visit: www.houseofpersianrugs.com.
For more information, or to set up an interview, please contact:
Richard Truscott, Venture Communications
Ph: 403-237-2388 ext 243, email: truscott@openminds.ca
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Persian Rugs Seller Marks Fourth Decade
David Parker
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.
- - -
David Parker appears Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at 403-830-4622 or e-mail info@davidparker.ca
Copyright © The Calgary Herald 2008
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved. CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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.
- - -
David Parker appears Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He can be reached at 403-830-4622 or e-mail info@davidparker.ca
Copyright © The Calgary Herald 2008
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved. CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
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