Sometimes, what happens in Vegas can stay in Los Angeles.
Or, more specifically, in a vacant industrial building in Sylmar. That will be the new home of a 25-year-old Calabasas business named Drapes 4 Show Inc., which has made linens for Air Force One, swanky hotels, exclusive celebrity weddings and Hollywood movie sets.
The company had been leaving for Las Vegas, where many of its products are used, because it couldn't find a suitable site for growth. Everything the company looked at in Los Angeles and Orange counties was too small, too expensive or too far from its workers.
But the company that was founded in a schoolteacher's garage had learned that it pays to look for expert help when problems arise. This time, it came from a $900,000 grant and loan package from the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles, approved by the City Council last week.
"Our problem was never a lack of sales. It was the constraint of our space. We felt like that seal with the plastic six-pack holder closing in around its neck," said Jason Honigberg, Drapes 4 Show's chief financial officer and the son of founder Karen Honigberg.
"We're thrilled. We didn't want to uproot or lose our employees. We really wanted to stay in Los Angeles," he said.
Drapes 4 Show's 30 employees design and sew tablecloths, napkins, table draping fabrics, backdrops and other products for hotels, convention centers and hospitality industry clients. It's a lucrative niche that brought in $3.6 million in sales in 2007, but it began in an unlikely fashion.
In 1983, Karen Honigberg was a teacher with an art background who was looking for work that would allow her more time to raise her two sons. Help came from her best friend's husband, who sold custom-made motorcycle parts at trade shows. The fabrics he used to cover his trade show tables were always wrinkled and frayed and hurt his product presentation, she said.
Honigberg, 61, had loved weaving on the looms at Cal State Northridge while she worked on her art degree. She jumped at the opportunity and rented an industrial-grade sewing machine to do the work.
"He said, 'Can you make a lightweight display for me that I can carry on and off planes and will be very professional-looking?' " Honigberg said.
"We made him four panels for the backdrop, each 8 feet by 54 inches, and we silk-screened his logo on. It looked very nice. People saw them and started coming to us asking for back drapes for their shows," she said.
