What to shop for at the spring Round Top Antiques Festival
Round Top Antiques Festival is trending. Shoppers and interior designers alike have discovered that Texas’ huge regional event is the perfect place to find European antiques and art, as well as Texana.
In her nearly 40-year career as an antiques dealer, Kathy Crow has seen things go in and out of style — and, sometimes, back in again. For more than 25 years, designers and fans of antiques could shop her English and French antiques at the Antique Pavilion on Westheimer.
It officially closed at the end of 2022, and Crow decided to restart her business — Crow & Company — in a new shop on West Alabama and by signing up as a vendor at the Original Round Top Antiques Fair, the complex that includes the Big Red Barn and the Continental Tent.
“It has turned into such a major event,” Crow said. “So many mom-and-pop antique shops have closed around the country, so these large, regional fairs have taken on much more prominence in the antique world than ever before. I can put my antiques in front of a vast number of people and meet new clients.”
Emma Lee Turney launched Texas Antiques Week in 1968 at the Round Top Rifle Association, drawing 6,000 people. They called that a resounding success, though that crowd doesn’t compare to the sprawling series of individual shows — the original fair, commonly called the Big Red Barn, Marburger Farm Antique Show,
The Compound, Blue Hills, The Arbors, Bader Ranch to name a few — that set up along Texas 237 between Brenham and La Grange.
Round Top and other regional markets, such as the Brimfield, Mass., antique shows; the Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville; and the Scott Antique Markets in Atlanta have become more important, because shoppers know they hold a large concentration of experienced antiques dealers with merchandise from all over the world.
While every venue will have a mix of newer and older things, the Big Red Barn, Continental Tent and the Marburger show have the biggest collections of authentic vintage and antique art, furniture and home goods. Other sites have dealers with vintage and antique pieces, but may also have dealers with new products, such as handmade soaps, candles, clothing and jewelry.
Crow said there once was a time when all she needed was her own shop, but now dealers need a shop or warehouse to keep their inventory, online sales, regional shows and lots of social media to keep merchandise turning over. Her new shop at 3637 W. Alabama is in an area with a number of interior design-related businesses.
“What I have seen at Round Top is that designers come from all over the U.S. because they have limited places to shop. A lot of people buy on the internet, but a lot still want to see what they’re buying. They want to meet and take a measure of the dealer and know what they’re buying is authentic,” Crow said.
Crow went to Europe to find new things for Round Top. Her goal was to bring unique pieces that shoppers wouldn’t find in any other booth.
She has a European game table that was one of a kind back when it was made 150 years ago, a pair of unique carved wall hangings and Art Deco elevator stools that she imagines someone today could use as drink tables.
Shopping for art
Shoppers will find more art at The Compound, where they’ve opened a new, 2,000square-foot art wing that holds work by two Texas contemporary artists, Debra Ferrari of Debra Ferrari Fine Art and Scott Kerr of Scott Kerr Art. Houston art dealer Jill Risley will have an adjacent space with a wider variety of art that she sells in her Lagniappe Shoppe.
Art has had a growing presence in every Round Top venue, as interior designers encourage clients to buy original works and more people begin to care about curating art collections. Virtually every venue will have vendors with new, vintage or antique art, from drawings and paintings to sculptures and other items.
Dallas-based Brooke Drake Designs, who sold her wares at Marburger for six years, returns to Blue Hills again with her colorful, maximalist style. Her use of bold color shows up in bright turquoise and apple green walls, along with vintage Murano glass, French lithographs and Chinese porcelain in colors other than the usual blue and white.
“Everyone always says how happy and distinct my work is, but I think it’s the mix of midcentury modern and antiques and putting color and texture together. I buy things that I love, and other people love it, too,” said Brooke Henry Drake, a makeup artist turned jewelry designer turned antiques dealer. “I use them with rainbow colors. I have Chinese export porcelain in a rainbow of colors. My color palette, the aqua and orange and green and pink, there’s a feminine edge to it.”
Design goods
Another Dallas-based design firm, Found by BRNS Design, is one new vendor coming to Blue Hills. Hayden Brandenburger, who works for BRNS Design as an interior designer, said she and her co-workers have always shopped Round Top for client projects and so they decided to have their own booth selling the kinds of things they use in clients’ homes.
They have a mix of new case goods with vintage upholstered items, lighting and décor, all laid out in the kind of vignettes that would exist in a home.
Ender Tasci, who owns Elephant Walk Antiques, will be a more familiar face in the same venue. The longtime antiques dealer came to Round Top so many times that in his semiretirement, he moved to Round Top. He’s known for an inventory of 17th- and 18th-century Mediterranean, French, Spanish and Italian antiques. He has furniture, vintage Murano lighting and a fair amount of antique garden items that have become popular in recent years.
“I grew up in Europe and studied design there. I love modern and period antiques, but my passion is in texture. I love the patina and the surfaces, glass and shiny chrome, feathers and fur. I think the world is more beautiful with texture, and luckily, the whole design world appreciates texture,” said Tasci who was born in Greece but grew up in Turkey and Switzerland and went to college in England before coming to America for graduate studies. “I look for different textures and items with form and shape and color. Unlike most people, I’m not scared of color. I love bold color in glass and in upholstery.”