An Artful Heirloom

“I moved to New York in 1980,” begins Ben, as he sips on his coffee in the Library at the NoMad Hotel in Manhattan. “After I finished in the armed service, I came to the United States. My parents told me that we have a far relative working in the rug trade, and I came to work for him.”

Ben’s work extends to every nook of the NoMad, from the Library and Atrium to the guest rooms, from the NoMad Bar on up to the Rooftop. Ben provides the NoMad Restaurant and Hotel with fine antique rugs. While his wares are ubiquitous, Ben himself is a bit more elusive.

“Did you love rugs right away, or was it just a job?” we asked Ben.

“I loved it right away,” he said.

Born in Tel Aviv, Ben is a first-generation Israeli. His parents and grandparents came to Israel and Palestine from Iran. Up until 1935, Iran was known as Persia.

It was not uncommon for families to immigrate to Israel, and like America, there are several countries represented in its cultural fiber. As American children of immigrants only know America and are American, Ben is and feels Israeli. But Ben still feels a connection to Iran and the traditions and culture of his ancestry.

“Something that the Jewish-Iranian people bring with them from their people is a love for rugs,” Ben said. “I was really born into rugs.”

“Would a family pride itself on their rugs? Even if they weren’t super well off?” I asked.

“Every Persian family has to have a rug,” Ben said. “The higher your status, the better rug you have. When people are getting married, one of the things is, you have to give a dowry to the bride. A rug. A fine rug.”

Usually, people have a rug in the living room, the family rug, and it is hardly walked on. Older rugs are only brought out for company. When guests are over, the rug is brought out; it is opened up and shown. Then it is rolled back up and put away. A philosophy not unlike a grandmother who wraps her furniture in plastic, these rugs are meant to be seen and not touched.

“It’s a show-off piece. Like a painting,” Ben said. “Some people even hang them on the wall.”

Ben’s first job when he moved to New York was working for his distant relative. “I started as… as nothing really. A little bit of an assistant,” he said.

While working for his relative, Ben moved to New Rochelle, where he would refurbish and resell rugs. Looking to advance, Ben left this job and took up work with another fine rug purveyor in Manhattan. Like many trades, passion does not always equal dollar signs, and Ben needed to make more money. So he did a stint installing wall-to-wall carpets, day and night, to pay the bills. But that didn’t last.

“You just can’t find good people to work with,” Ben said.

“Carpet isn’t really in fashion right now,” I said.

“No, no, it’s not.”

Keeping his hand in the fine rug business, Ben continued to sell rugs at the souk of today: eBay. Then Ben caught a break.

“You can quote my words here,” Ben said, “I believe in miracles.”

Ben sold a rug to a server in a restaurant at a downtown hotel. “He was impressed with the service I gave to him,” Ben said. “He told Meredith Morgan, his general manager, that they need to do some stuff at their hotel downtown. And I helped her. She was impressed.” Ms. Morgan became the hotel general manager who opened the NoMad Hotel in New York City. “She dragged me here,” Ben said.

Now Ben is a full-time rug trader, listing auction houses and boutique antique shops as his clients. He even has designers that call on him on the regular.

“Are you happy? Working with rugs, working with your passion?” I asked.

“The business is up and down, up and down. It drives me crazy,” Ben said. “We are living in the ‘throwaway culture,’ and this is a bad thing.”

Fine rugs, an art that was a part of every day, is now mostly reserved for collectors, galleries, and museums.

The most expensive rug ever sold at auction was sold in 2013. It was a Persian rug sold at Sotheby’s in New York City. It went for $34 million. Even more valuable still is the Pazyryk rug. Found in a partially-frozen burial site in the mountains of Kazakhstan in 1943, the rug is of Persian make and is the oldest known rug of Asian origin. The rug is over 2,400 years old. “This rug,” Ben said, “not only is it a work of art, you cannot put a number on it.”

“What makes a rug so valuable?” we asked.

“[T]he reason why it brings in this kind of money is its age. The rug is over 400 years old. It is made with all vegetable dyes. It is rare. You will never find a rug like this again,” Ben said.

As much as Ben owes his enduring success to the quality of his rugs and the care he takes in sourcing them, and a bit of luck, Ben has an approach to selling rugs that he feels sets him apart.

“This is what I do,” Ben said, “after I know a person, I like to sell him the right rug, that is the right for the place, and at the right price. It’s not just to sell the rug,” he said. “You care about the place. You care about finding the rug a home.”