Founder of First Round Top Antiques Fair Dies

The woman credited with starting the first Round Top Antiques Fair, Emma Lee Turney, died Saturday.

She was 92.

Turney was an antiques dealer when three philanthropists, Hazel Ledbetter, Faith Bybee and Ima Hogg who were interested in Round Top restoration efforts, recruited her to organize a show.

In October 1968 Turney held Round Top’s first antique fair at the town’s Rifle Hall with 26 dealers.

“That was a very progressive thing for a woman to do back then,” said longtime friend Kathy Johnston. “But she set her mind to doing it and she made it a success. She paved the way for a lot of women by her example.”

The event quickly grew and within a few years the waiting list for vendors was more than 80. She added an adjacent tent with 88 dealers to compliment the vendors in the Rifle Hall, with thousands of attendees over the fair’s three day weekend span back then. The show became a regular event on the Rivers Oaks social calendar in the late 60s and early 70s. As concerts and other cultural events flourished at Hogg’s Winedale and Bybee’s Henkel Square the antiques show grew too.

Turney later added the Antique Annex on 237, secured another venue at the Carmine Dance Hall and in 1995 bought the land and built the Big Red Barn complex. In 2005, Turney retired and sold the Original Round Top Antiques Fair to Susan Franks. Turney was the subject of a 1998 book called “Denim and Diamonds: The story of Emma lee Turney’s Round Top Antiques Fair.”

Since 1968, the antiques events centered in and around Round Top have grown to draw thousands of vendors and tens of thousands of shoppers. The events now span nearly a month, with shows in the spring and fall.

“I believe Ms. Turney would be proud to know that her love of antiques and design has created one of the most important shows in the nation,” said Round Top mayor Mark Massey.

This year’s spring shows begin next weekend.

“She was always bigger than life, a force to be reckoned with,” Johnston said. “She had a big personality, rough around the edges but with a good, good heart and very generous ... It’s another era gone.”