CONCORD, North Carolina — Heritage House Fabrics has purchased the inventory, patterns and name of Dana Mills Inc. from Deborah Newberger, principal of the 41-year-old Chicago, Illinois based converter of contract fabrics and blackout linings started by her father, Leonard Newberger.

“Dana started as a converter to the mobile home trade in 1969 and evolved with the fabrics industry,” Deborah said. "She will continue to work from her home base in Chicago as an employee of Heritage House selling fabrics, making deals and getting people what they want. Dana Mills will become the contract division of Heritage House. The customer will not notice any differences in doing business with Dana except the name on the invoices will change.”

Dana produces ranges of transfer printed fabrics, sheers, plains and printed goods for the hospitality trade including FR. Deborah expects to attend the Hospitality Design Show in Vegas in May as well as MoOD in Belgium although she will not be an exhibitor at either event. Heritage will exhibit at Showtime in High Point in July as usual.

Thomas Hilb started Heritage House LLC in 2003 as a drapery fabrics importer and distributor. In 2004, Heritage acquired the assets of ITC, an upholstery importer and converter; Belle Fabrics, another upholstery importer was acquired in 2007. Dana is the latest acquisition.

“We will continue to be on the lookout for other acquisitions in the fabrics industry,” Hilb said.

His strategy to continue the businesses he acquires by producing running lines for the customers has paid off. His sales are strong though he has been affected by the industry slowdown along with everyone else, he said.

In 2009, Heritage completed the construction of its 50,000 square foot warehouse with 30 foot ceilings in Concord. The warehouse stores its inventory for its running lines as well as provides shipping and commission warehousing for other fabric companies.