Susan Franks filled The Big Red Barn with more than 120 dealers January 16‱7, and the public responded Saturday morning by filling the rain-soaked parking lot and lining the road outside with vehicles that transported 1,200-plus customers in the first three hours of the show. In fact, there were more Cadillacs and Lincoln SUVs than ever seen before in a single parking lot in this Texas town between Houston and Austin, according to Franks.
The Winter Show was begun the year after Franks and her husband Bo purchased The Big Red Barn and the antiques shows in 2005. This January affair, held in the chilly and rainy Texas winter, is entirely inside The Barn, unlike the spring and fall shows that are triple this size and spread into football-field sized tents.
Included in the mix that filled The Barn were Flo Blue Brothers, dealers from Denton, Texas. Their collection is entirely the English earthenware of their business name, and all made prior to 1900.
Barb Kleinwachter, Golden, Colo., was showing her collection of Nineteenth Century furniture and home décor. Her style includes Larkin and some Grand Rapids makers in oak pieces, but she also was selling many early store fixtures, such as a Coats & Clark spool cabinet, dye cupboards and a coffee grinder base cabinet †all with original advertising.
Ralph Willard was exhibiting with a decorator’s eclectic collection of accessories, art and folk art. He is a dealer and also the promoter of Rifle Hall Antiques Show held in Round Top in the spring and fall. He started as a dealer, however, and still enjoys exhibiting whenever he can find the time.
Regulars to the show included Vernon’s Antique Shop, headquartered nearby in Brenham, Texas. His collection included many very early painted pieces, but only for a short time. He was selling very well as soon as the show opened. Vernon’s has been using the first booth inside the door since The Barn was opened and has a longtime following of customers, but also a great appeal to the first-time visitors. As the show opened, his first sale was an early dry sink in original surface, a red wash of buttermilk paint. More furniture was sold over the next few hours.
Fred Cain had a fast start as well. From Fort Myers, Fla., he collects and trades in what appeals to him as attractive and worthy for its value in craftsmanship, originality and age. The show began for him with the sale of a pair of wooden wall sconces, made of very thinly cut and planed pine planks, pinned together as shelf and backboard. They sold so fast, one prospective customer blinked, and they were gone. She said, “When you snooze, you lose” in good-natured humor toward herself.
Wayne Ayers Folk Art is named after its owner, a Connecticut native now living in nearby Chappell Hill, Texas. He is a fulltime outsider artist, making folk art, whimsies and restoring early antiques and art. His collection has many pieces that are carefully identified for what they are †his own work. He also was showing and selling many early pieces in original painted surface.
In a show of this size there was something for everyone. Bill Cawood, Heritage Maps, from Rome, Ga., was showing his collection of antique Texas maps and some from other nearby states. Ruchelle Davis, also from Rome, Ga., brought and sold from her inventory of fine linens.
Out of Pasadena, Texas, Harper’s Antiques was offering a mixture of early country and hardwood furniture. Patti Walsh, Chappell Hill, had a room setting depicting a New England home in the early Eighteenth Century.
Franks Promotions has four antiques shows each year at The Big Red Barn in Round Top, with its 40-year history of drawing antiques and antiques collectors to its location.
The Original Round Top Antiques Festival, the principal show for Round Top Week, will be March 31⁁pril 3.
The Big Red Barn is on 475 South State Highway, Carmine, about two miles south of US Highway 290. For information, www.roundtoptexasantiques.com or 512-237-4747.
