Kashou Carpets, a Milwaukee fixture that sold rugs to beer barons and the Pfister Hotel, to close after 108 years

Whacked by the migration of fine-rug sales to the internet, Kashou Carpets, a Milwaukee east side fixture for decades that describes itself as one of the oldest carpet stores in the country, is closing.

Owner Robert Kashou, third-generation owner of the store, 2169 N. Farwell Ave., will begin liquidating the merchandise Sept. 3. The doors will close for good in early December.

Sales of the 108-year-old shop's rugs — it has specialized for decades in Persian and other Oriental rugs costing anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000 — have dropped by 50 percent over the past four years, Kashou said Monday after announcing the store-closing decision.

"Amazon really created a very different business environment for everybody out there, and it really hurt the business model that Kashou Carpets has thrived on for all these years," he said.

That high-service, high-selection model has depended on carrying extensive inventory — something that has become increasingly difficult to sustain as sales decline, Kashou said. Not wanting to change the approach, "we just decided to close it up on a high note," he said.

"It's kind of a bittersweet thing, but we've had a very good run of 108 years, and it's time to move on," Kashou said.

He said that when he points to "Amazon," he means not just the online giant but a slew of internet-based companies that have carved out larger slices of the rug business. For some time, Kashou stuck it out, thinking that the huge selection of rugs available online couldn't match a brick-and-mortar store's ability to let customers see and feel the actual product.

"But we were proven wrong," he said. 

Kashou's grandfather, George Kashou, started the business after immigrating to the U.S. from Palestine in the early 1900s.

Over the following decades, Kashou sold tens of thousands of rugs and installed more than 5 million yards of carpet in the Milwaukee area. Among purchasers of the shop's oriental rugs were beer barons, industrialists and the Pfister Hotel, which for many years had a Kashou rug in every guestroom.

Robert Kashou, 59, said he has taken a position with Floor360, a Madison flooring company with stores in Madison and Delafield. Floor360 plans to open a Milwaukee-area store at West Silver Spring Drive and North 125th Street.

Kashou Carpets will be closed on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 to prepare for the liquidation.