Boomtown Market: Round Top, Texas, goes from empty to exquisite overnight
Round Top, Texas, is a place. You can find it on a map, read what the Chamber of Commerce says online, note that its population is 93 and make the 7-hour-plus drive from OKC to the spot between College Station and Austin. If you go 47 weeks out of the year, you’ll find a small Texas town with a quaint town square, a handful of eateries, a surprisingly good restaurant (Boon & Company), an excellent coffee shop (Mill Street Cafe) and a regionally famous bar (Ellis Motel) — but aside from the criminally underappreciated Menke House, very few accommodations, which makes sense for a town of 93 people.
The two-digit population number feels like a marketing ploy the other five weeks of the year, because Round Top and its surroundings are home to three seasonal events that bring roughly 100,000 people to the area to shop 65 locations in a 20-mile radius that includes Warrenton, Carmine, Burton and Fayetteville, Texas.
“The city is an incorporated town of one square mile,” says Mary Lou Marks. She owns Southern Beasts, a gallery adjacent to the town square. She is also, to the best of her recollection, the last artist who has been at every show since Emma Lee Turney created the first antiques show in 1968. “There are many more people that live just outside that square mile who are very much part of what makes Round Top.”
That makes sense, as it would be impossible for a town of 93 to host 100,000 people three times a year: shows are in the spring, fall and winter. No one wants to be in Round Top, Texas in July; it’s south Texas, and many of the markets’ hundreds of vendors are set up in tents, pole barns and kiosks with no air conditioning. The infrastructure has grown with the show. What started as an antiques show has become a complex, decentralized mix of antiques, fashion, jewelry, painting, sculpture, home decor and collectibles, many of which are one-of-a-kind custom pieces.
Dr. Sylvia Kampshoff’s Pata leather goods
Round Top Antiques & Design Center
“The appeal of Round Top is that clients are looking for me; I’m not looking for clients,” says Cealy Mills, who owns Wohali, a custom hat producer with a studio on N. Western in Oklahoma City. She is one of very few Oklahoma artisans with a presence at the shows. She shares space with Heather Benjamin Jewelry at The Halles, a market just north of town proper. “The people who come to The Halles are looking for things they can’t get anywhere else.”
Mills went to Round Top the first time for the spring show in 2023 at the invitation of Heather Goldman, who owns Heather Benjamin Jewelry. “I reached out to Heather because I love her jewelry and thought it was a good fit for the Wohali brand,” Mills says. “She invited me to come check out the spring show, and before it was over, she asked if I’d like to join her for the fall show.”
Moving from market to market along Highway 237, a creeping awareness settles in as you view the mix of products. The one-of-a-kind pieces that are the signature of The Halles are being replaced at other markets by mass-manufactured products purchased in Dallas or Houston and lugged to Round Top to capitalize on the presence of tens of thousands of shoppers. Jim Kastleman, publisher of PaperCity Magazine and owner of The Halles, bought the market four years ago to “create an elevated venue to shine a light on artisans, designers and wickedly creative people.”
“PaperCity Houston covered Round Top several years ago, and I could feel the momentum of the place,” Kastleman said. “When the owners of the property asked me about buying it, I could feel the devil and angel on each shoulder talking to me.”
Wohali owner Cealy Mills, adorns one of her custom hats at The Halles
Friends gather at The Halles
The Halles is 5.1 acres of land with 28,000 square feet of rental space, including a handful of 3D-printed cement casitas for vendors to stay in during the show. The grounds boast a restaurant, coffee shop, workout facility and gallery for visiting artists. The fall show in 2024 had neo-expressionist bunny and butterfly artist Hunt Slonem in the space. Nearly every vendor makes one-of-a-kind pieces, from Wohali’s handmade hats to Dr. Sylvia Kampshoff’s Pata leather goods to Chris Bachman and Nichole Petrie’s timely, eye-catching mixed media pieces under their Bachman-Petrie brand.
“North Carolina has been a destination for decades in the furniture industry,” Kastleman said. “It’s become sterile. I think Round Top has become as important and just as prominent. Three years ago the CEO of the High Point (NC) Market came out here with his senior team. He told me they were just trying to see what made Round Top so special, and in his words, ‘bottle the energy and bring it to North Carolina.’”
Oklahoma City designer Lisa Luck has been going to Round Top for 15 years, seeking out high-end antiques for her interior design clients, and she’s been a vendor for seven years. She’s about to start her own line of custom Western furniture, so she’s looking for the right spot to showcase her work. The Halles is an obvious choice, and she’s been in conversations with Kastleman about making the jump from her current market to his.
Luck describes herself as the “person who wears all her jewelry in one day.” She’s a former gospel singer, and a creative all the way through. “I love the culture and people of Round Top,” she says. “We love what we do; we share a mindset, and the energy that creates is what attracts people to the markets.”
Mills and Luck are already planning for the winter market. It’s a four-day event instead of the two-week affairs of spring and fall, and it’s Jan. 23-26, 2025. Mills is in the process of considering expanding her presence there, including a more robust approach to men’s hats and jewelry. “Round Top brings together people who appreciate artisanal work, and it’s very refreshing to find that crowd,” Mills said. “I’ve never experienced anything like it anywhere else.”