Our Story
The Landry & Arcari Experience
Landry & Arcari Rugs and Carpeting offers the largest and most diverse selection of fine rugs and broadloom carpeting in New England. Founded in 1938, we have showrooms in Salem, MA, Boston's Back Bay, and on Rt. 9 in Framingham, MA.
Our History
Our founder Gerard Arcari is a noted expert on Oriental rugs. His interest in oriental rugs began over forty years ago when he apprenticed under an Oriental rug expert from Beirut. After years of learning the history, art and care of oriental carpets, Jerry led sales and buying for the rug department of Jordan Marsh in Peabody, Massachusetts.
In 1981, Jerry Arcari and his wife Connie bought the established Landry Brothers Upholstery Furniture, which had been established in 1938. They changed the business from one that sold oriental rugs as an adjunct to furniture to one that concentrated on oriental rugs and interior design. Landry & Arcari Interiors soon became the Massachusetts's North Shore's most outstanding resource for oriental rugs and interior design. In 1993, when Connie retired, the store became devoted solely to oriental rugs and broadloom carpeting. In 2002, Landry & Arcari expanded by opening a showroom in Boston's Back Bay. In 2015, Landry & Arcari opened their Framingham showroom on Rt.9 East.
A Family Business
Jerry has passed on his knowledge and enthusiasm for oriental rugs to his children, Jay Julie, and Jeffrey. Julie is the CEO. Jay is the Broadloom Carpeting Manager. Jeffrey, as, Oriental Rugs Manager, is buyer of hand-woven rugs and has developed our overseas rug productions. Jeff makes frequent visit to overseas rug weaving area to personally select stock for the store. Furthermore, Jeff's expertise in antique oriental rugs enables Landry & Arcari to have a thriving business in the field. Jerry continues to play an important role in the business in a role as senior advisor and in other capacities, particularly public relations and retail sales.
Together, they have made Landry & Arcari a highly reputable, thriving business with one of the largest, most outstanding collections of oriental rugs and carpeting in New England.
Our Commitments
Landry & Arcari is commited to offering exceptional value, education, community, consumer rights, weavers
To Value
Landry & Arcari is committed to offering exceptional carpets honestly priced, along with outstanding customer service. We travel several times a year to visit weavers all over the East, often to remote villages where westerners are rarely seen. Since we purchase our rugs directly from the weavers, we get the best quality rugs and you pay the best prices (without the costly middlemen mark-ups).
To Education & Community
Landry & Arcari demonstrates their commitment to consumer education by offering several lectures a year at area historical societies and museums, as well as at the stores. Ask about our lectures on antique rugs, new rugs, rug weaving, and rug repair. They are free and open to the public. Our most popular presentations are interior design lectures given by guest designers. Please join us!
This interest in educating the public about Orientals has led to a unique private-public sector partnership between Landry & Arcari and several non-profit organizations. For the past fifteen years, Landry & Arcari has held very successful benefit rug sales and exhibitions to raise funds for the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem, Strawberry Banke Museum of Portsmouth, NH, the Knights of Columbus, and WBUR Radio of Boston, among others.
To Integrity & Consumer Rights
Jerry has been the President of the Oriental Rug Dealers' Association of Massachusetts, and he has served on the Board of Directors for many years. He is also a member of the Oriental Rugs Retailers Association. The goal of both organizations is safeguarding the consumer by establishing ethical guidelines and educating buyers about oriental rugs and dealers.
To Our Weavers
We are proud to offer work and a meaningful opportunity for advancement to the families involved in our weaving projects. In rug-making regions, weaving is a sought-after occupation as it is much less demanding than farming, the predominant source of income.
Landry & Arcari is a member of GoodWeave, an international nonprofit organization devoted to building schools, programs and opportunities that give children back their childhoods by ending child labor in the handmade carpet industry in South Asia. The GoodWeave label on a rug assures that the rug is child-labor-free.
Landry & Arcari has donated significantly to the cost of building a new school for our Indian weaving community. This project is also funded by the non-profit organization The Barakat Society.
