There’s a little bit of Winston-Salem residing in some of the world’s most noted hotels, casinos, and restaurants. It’s neatly tucked inside Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace and hanging proudly in Hawaii’s Grand Wailea resort. It’s even sailing along with some of Carnival and Royal Caribbean’s grandest ships.

The uniting thread is Upper South Studio, a local company that designs and prints fabrics for the hospitality, gaming, and restaurant industries. It’s owned by Laurence and Susan Rosen, husband and wife, and based out of a three-story workshop just south of downtown.

The couple came to Winston-Salem from New York City in the mid-1970s. Before then, Laurence was a burgeoning painter/printer in Manhattan with a graduate degree from Yale University. They started Upper South studio in 1980, drawing from Laurence’s architecture, painting, and printing background. While he’s the mastermind behind the designs, Susan handles the business side of things.

So what is it that sets Upper South’s fabric prints apart? “I think we take our designs more seriously than a lot of other textile companies,” Laurence says. “Instead of creating cookie-cutter designs, we’re more interested in something we call ‘environmental theater.’ ”

For instance, when the Aston Waikiki resort approached Upper South about creating fabric designs, the property owners said they wanted something that was authentically Hawaiian — leis, hula skirts, etc. So, after immersing himself in the Hawaiian culture, Laurence came back with a vibrantly authentic Hawaiian design.

“I wanted visitors to walk in and instantly say, ‘Wow, this is it — this is Hawaii!’ ” he says. “I definitely wanted the room to be unique; I didn’t want it to feel like a room you could get in Cincinnati.”

Upper South has taken this site-specific approach and applied it to designs all over the world, creating a mixed bag of bedspreads, draperies, carpets, outdoor products, and wall upholstery, along with branded products. It’s odd then, given the company’s global success, that it remains relatively unknown on a local level. Perhaps it’s because Upper South doesn’t do a lot of regional work (Greensboro’s Proximity Hotel being an exception). Whatever the reason, the anonymity seems to sit just fine with the Rosens.

“We like flying under the radar,” Laurence says. “The only thing that interests me is enhancing someone’s experience through design, whether they’re at a five-star restaurant in Texas or a winery in California. We just try to tell a place’s story.”

For more information, go to uppersouthstudio.com