Rocky Casteel, president, Mohawk Home, and Tracy Pruitt, VP of product design, introduce Karastan's best-selling
717 rug to buyers and designers at High Point Market.

HIGH POINT, N.C. -- Karastan introduced High Point rug buyers and designers to the new iteration of its longest running, circa 1937, best-selling Kirman 717, which recreates one of America's most recognizable rugs in a hand-knotted weave at High Point Market.

"We're excited to bring back a major part of our history," Rocky Casteel, president, Mohawk Home, told RugNews.com at the spring edition of High Point Market. "It's certainly timeless, and there's nothing that speaks to Karastan more than 717. This is the look that made the Karastan name."

"We're already taking orders on it," added Casteel. "All the rug dealers are excited to have it back, as well as furniture folks that are really into rugs." The response was instant and many rug buyers immediately recognized the design, which will be stocked in sizes 8x10, 9x12, and 10x14.


Karastan's new 717 rug is recreated as a hand-knotted rug crafted of New Zealand wool in 10/10 quality.
 
The new 717 rug will also be available as custom-size rugs using the design's field, which would be cut and bound domestically. And custom sizes of the full rug are also an option. In fact, a White House designer was in the High Point showroom this week, and plans are in the works to replace a vintage 717 rug in the Eisenhower room, "He's so happy we have it back," Pruitt said.

Unlike a special limited edition released in 2015, an Eden, North Carolina, produced Axminster, the 2026 rug is hand-knotted in a 10/10 quality from New Zealand wool in India and recreates the Kirman Panel design.

"The original 717 featured 50 colors and back then that was a lot -- It was the most any Karastan rug," said Tracy Pruitt, VP product design. "So, we took the same exact colors and the exact same yarn poms from the original but because the hand-knotting process is a different process, we could narrow the colors down to about 15 colors. We kept the vibrancy and the whole heritage of that color story that people know and expect."

Introduced in 1937 and created at Karastan's Eden manufacturing facility, which the company shuttered in March 2021, the 717 design was Karastan's, if not America's longest running rug design. It was the company's best-selling rug as well. The design became a staple of middle-class homes by making a machine-woven rug that replicated the look of classic Persian area rugs at more affordable prices. In fact, the original design was inspired by a classic Oriental hand-knotted carpet.


The original Karastan 717 rug was introduced in 1937 and produced in the company's Eden, N.C., facility.

“When we left Eden, it was very difficult to move that equipment and duplicate it, because the Axminsters in Eden were literally created in Eden," explained Pruitt. "It's not like the automatic Van de Wiele Wilton looms of today. It was a unique process of making these rugs to emulate hand-knotted Persian rugs so that they could be affordable for the American audience." (Read more about the history of the Eden facility and the 717 rug from RugNews.com founder Lissa Weyman here.

"Those machines are not like any other machines I've ever seen,” said Pruitt. "I'd never seen them until the late 1990s. And, when I saw them, I thought, ‘this looks like a machine from Dr. Seuss.’"

It took the company nearly a year to find a rug weaving studio for the 2026 release, and once selected, more than another 12 months was spent to get the design ready to be presented to the public.

Karastan had a difficult time finding weavers that had could execute the rug to the company's standards. When a mill was found, only three master artisans out of their many weavers were able to produce the new 717 design, Pruitt said.

Added Casteel, "I do hope that we can add to this with more traditional, classic Karastan patterns as we move forward."