Frank Di Piazza
On McPherson, east of CENTRO, past Berger's funeral home stands a gorgeous little shop called Halbert Rugs. Sunlight floods in through large windows, falling softly on the piles of rugs, casting shadows off others festooning the wall. In the back of the room, owner Greg Halbert is stationed at his desk, surveying his goods. And the goods look ... great. Every single hand-knotted rug is made of hand-carded, hand-spun wool, colored with natural plant dyes. In fact, Halbert Rugs is the only shop in the state — and one of a select few in the country — that can stake that claim.
Using plant dyes for rugs died out in the '20s, says Mr. Halbert, because no one could actually tell the difference between natural and synthetic. In 1981, Harald Bohmer, a German chemist, started the Cultural Survival Project in villages in southern Turkey. He instructed weavers to revert to the tradition of using plant dyes — madder root for red, nuts for oranges and yellows, indigo for blue. It took years of experimenting for them to get the colors exactly right.
For 15 years, Halbert Rugs' address was on Sanchez at Market Street in San Francisco. "Living there wasn't easy," Mr. Halbert says. "I needed a change, and I wanted to be closer to my parents, who live here. I looked all around, but I came to St. Louis, and I fell in love with it all over again." Now, a year after moving, he's waiting — just a tad bit anxiously — for the city to feel the same about his shop. "It's been tough," he says. "It's like pulling teeth." Halbert's rugs are woven in Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan and India. A 9 by 12-foot rug with a regular weave and lowest knot density sells here for $4,600; price tags climb up to $10,000.
"I try to keep the cost low to keep the rugs going through the store," he says. Once an accountant, Mr. Halbert started out collecting tribal and Turkoman weavings. Then he sold rugs out of his garage. "It was so much fun, I said, 'This is what I am going to do.' When a path seems to lay itself out in front of you, you have to take it. And when it comes to rugs, I know my stuff — and I love it."
4701 McPherson, 314-361-9990 · halbertrugs.com · Mon–Sat 11 a.m.–6 p.m. · Sun 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
