A family-owned, multi-generational provider of residential and commercial flooring and related services is coming to downtown New Canaan.
Carpet Trends will open a satellite showroom at 97 Main St. this spring, according to owner Tyler Rogers, whose grandfather launched the business in 1956 in Rye, N.Y.
Inside the space at 97 Main St., future home of Carpet Trends, on Feb. 11, 2025. Credit: Michael Dinan
“We do some work in New Canaan and the surrounding area now, and we thought given the similarities between Rye and New Canaan, the location that [Realtor] Betsy [DiMatteo] helped me find, there was a lot of things that lined up, and it’s easy for us to service this area from our existing warehouse with our existing labor with our existing stock. We’re known for the stock that we carry, which is discounted high-end to low-end products that we buy in bulk. So when designers are shopping and they’re looking at the high-end products or they’re looking for whatever products, they come to our stock wall and see if they can get a good discount for a high-quality product because we have it in stock. And we curate that wall based on designers’ tastes and what we see them buying and what’s popular. So they come in and use our stock wall quite a bit. But obviously people walk in and use it quite a bit, too. It’s not just a designer business. We’re an open showroom.”
Carpet Trends is eyeing an April opening and is starting to prepare the commercial space—which has been vacant for nearly eight years (formerly Garelick & Herbs)—for the new showroom.
There, they’ll do sales, installation and callback services.
“We do hard goods now,” Rogers said. “A lot of vinyl, a lot of hardwood, a lot of rubber for gyms.”
The expansion is a milestone for a well-established company that’s always served its growing customer base out of Rye.
Ralph Rogers started the business in the 1950s after graduating from Cornell Agricultural School, Tyler Rogers said.
“He thought he was going to be a farmer, started having children and ended up in the carpet business because his own father—who had been working for a carpet mill in Yonkers—got looked over for a promotion and quit,” Rogers said with a laugh. “So they got together and started a business in Rye, and he was a one-man show when they first started. He would put up a sign in his station wagon. He would sell in the morning, install in the evenings. Rye was a lot different demographically back then, it was a lot more blue collar. But eventually, as Rye grew in popularity, more affluent customers moved in, the business grew, he ended up buying the existing building where we are in 1973. It was a Chrysler dealership and it had been a stable back in the late-1800s. It’s an old Dutch building, it’s beautiful, and actually one of the reasons I like the building we’re going to move to in New Canaan is there’s a lot of similarities with the exposed beams—they’re not as nice as down in Rye here—but it’s got a similar aesthetic.”
Rogers’s own father, Henry, joined and grew the business with Ralph after college, he said.
“He had worked for Union Carbide for a little bit and then my grandfather offered him a job back here and he expanded the business quite a bit,” he said. “We moved our warehouse, which had been in this location in Rye. We moved that offsite, finally got a permanent site for it now in Rye. We just bought a facility that contains our warehouse and two marble companies. So we have the whole building now. So the business grew, and I came back into it. My little brother [Ryan] works here. And as the young blood moved in, we’ve been looking for places to expand to.”
New Canaan geographically makes sense for Carpet Trends, Rogers said.
“What I have found is that there’s a line in the flooring business where if you’re south of that line, you come shop with us,” he said. “If you’re north of that line, you go to Norwalk, you go to Westport, you go to other stores—maybe it’s because of traffic coming through Stamford, maybe it’s just convenience or maybe it’s just location—but I’ve always driven through New Canaan. I’ve always had friends in New Canaan. And I just know that it’s the kind of customer that we would like to service, that we know how to service, the level of service. We know where we need to be. It’s a natural step for us.”
Asked what is Carpet Trends’ message for New Canaan, Rogers said, “We’re a very family-friendly, community-oriented business. Our level of service is second to none, you’ll meet friendly staff. Our goal is to service the local community and their flooring needs and help with design, help with getting things from affordable basement carpet in large quantities to vinyl to decorating a beautiful stair and hall with the top-end brands. And everything in between. Our installations are top notch. Our callback rate is low, but if there is an issue, we’re back the next day, the next week to make sure that if there is an issue, it’s taken care of. That’s what we pride ourselves on is our service. And ‘Service You Can Stand On’ is our motto. We stand by that, which is what we’re known for—very customer-oriented, service-friendly and responsive.”
Jack Trifero, who owned The Gramophone Shop and Gramophone Video next door and represented the landlord in the agreement with Carpet Trends, said the business “becomes part of a long tradition of New Canaan merchants offering the highest level of knowledge, selection and service in carpeting.”
”They are a generational business that has been in operation for many decades,” Trifero said in an email. “This addition to our business district will be a valuable addition to our community.
Rogers said his vision for the new satellite showroom is to “blend right in with the community, increase our presence in New Canaan and surrounding towns and be a convenient place to shop for beautiful carpets from affordable to high end and be a fixture of the community for the foreseeable future.”
“We have a lot of young blood in the business,” he said. “We’re a fourth-generation family business with two younger guys looking to the future. So this is a good step for us and we’re very hopeful that it’s going to lead potentially to other locations. Right now we’re focused on figuring out the logistics of operating two stores instead of one.”