Saratoga News

Photograph by Sarah Lombardo

Siamak Seddighzadeh offers a wide variety of hand-woven French reproduction and Oriental rugs and tapestries, pillows and furniture.

Saratoga Rug Gallery brings designer rugs close to home

By Sarah Lombardo

It used to be that only the largest, most exclusive designer showrooms in San Francisco carried fine, hand-woven Oriental and French reproduction rugs and European silk screen and jacquard-woven tapestries. But for a little more than a year, Siamak Seddighzadeh's Saratoga Rug Gallery has offered those same exclusive items, in addition to handmade pillows, French tablecloths and imported furniture. The Rug Gallery can save savvy residents and interior designers in the know a long trip to San Francisco. And that's one reason Seddighzadeh opened it.

"I decided to open up a showroom because definitely there is a need for it for professionals and designers, as well as residents," he said. "Instead of traveling up to the city, they can find a unique product in their own hometown."

All of the rugs in the showroom are hand-knotted and made exclusively for the Rug Gallery. And if a customer finds a design she likes, but the rug itself if too big or too small, Seddighzadeh can have the same design made to fit the desired measurements.

"We don't carry anything machine-made," Seddighzadeh said.

Besides hometown convenience, Seddighzadeh also offers personal service from custom fitting and help taking measurements to installation, cleaning and rug repair. The Saratoga resident also lets customers take rugs and tapestries home to see how they look before buying them, a risky service for exclusive products that range in the thousands of dollars.

But Seddighzadeh, who has been in the import/export business for years, said he thinks the opportunity for customers to be really pleased with their purchase outweighs his risk of losing an item.

"In 20 years, I have never gotten burned by a customer taking a product home and not returning it," he said. "I want to provide a level of comfort with a product."

Seddighzadeh also strives to provide a level of comfort in his showroom. With rugs and tapestries gracing every wall and plush pillows piled high, the atmosphere is quiet and relaxed, which is exactly how Seddighzadeh wants customers to feel while shopping. "We have no sales pitch here," he said. "No pressure. I've always told customers that they are welcome to come back and look 20 times if they want."

And it's that personal service that customer Stephanie Hacker says keeps her coming back. "We have probably have a dozen rugs in our home, and I'd say about the first six we got from the city and shopping in Menlo Park and through designers. But his was the first place we went to where he was low pressure and low stress," she said. "He has as good a selection as any place in the city, but I'd say the real thing is his attitude. He's a real gentleman."

In his first year in business in Saratoga, Seddighzadeh said sales have been progressing every day. He said he has been amazed by the support he has received from residents. "People want to support a local business," he said.

The Saratoga Rug Gallery is located at 20506-A Saratoga-Los Gatos Rd., and can be reached at 872-0607.

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