Royalty Carpet Mills, a West Coast carpet manufacturer for nearly a half-century, has abruptly closed its doors and ceased operations, effective immediately, FCNews has learned.
An automated voice message left on the phone system at the mill’s headquarters in Irvine, Calif., notifies callers that “effective immediately” Royalty Carpet Mills, Camelot Carpet Mills, Moda LLC and PacifiCrest Mills “are closed and will not reopen.” Furthermore, several industry sources have confirmed that Royalty’s territory managers have been instructed to call customers and tell them to “throw away” their Royalty samples.
Royalty Carpet Mills, founded by industry icon Mike Derderian in 1969, carved out a legacy for creating and producing high-quality carpet products. When Derderian passed away in 2013 at age 87, his daughter, Andrea Greenleaf, took the reins. Greenleaf had been running PacifiCrest, its commercial division, for the previous 20 years. With Greenleaf at the helm, Royalty became the only female-owned and led carpet mill in the U.S.
FCNews will have more on this story in its June 19/26 issue.