When it came time to replace what seemed like miles of carpeting lining the guest corridors at The Ahwahnee Hotel, we looked for inspiration in the same antique Persian kilims we’d considered for the hotel’s Great Lounge. Kilims (kil-EEMS) – flat, tapestry woven carpets produced from the Balkans to Pakistan — had been part of the interior landscape at The Ahwahnee since the hotel opened in 1927; it seemed natural to extend this original design intent to the hotel’s upper floors, adapting and enlarging the colorful, geometric patterns for the corridors.
We visited our kilim source in New York City where we looked through several dozen carpets before settling on a small one from Turkey, measuring roughly two by three feet – no larger than a bath mat. 
We purchased the kilim and brought it across town to the showroom of a major carpet manufacturer. There, we worked to adapt the pattern for the large-scale production of broadloom goods, selecting colors by working with tufts of dyed wool.
Once installed, this spanking new carpet, based on a traditional Turkish weaving, looked so right and so at home, it was hard to remember what had been there before.
