Shops
Flapper dresses in Forreston, vintage pedal cars in Kingsville: An array of eclectic emporiums have some amazing things in store.
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Blanco • Johnson City • Wimberley
THESE HILL COUNTRY HAMLETS, A pleasant jaunt from San Antonio or Austin, form a lopsided triangle, at one tip of which is Blanco, a longtime center for farming, ranching, and antiquing. A venerable purveyor situated on the town square is Cranberry’s Antiques (830-833-5596), with two jam-packed levels and the largest single assortment of vintage veterinary medicines we’ve ever seen. Very tempting: a pristine Big Chief—style school tablet, circa 1955, featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis ($6). Far classier: a porcelain table lamp with pink roses reverse-painted on its frosted-glass shade ($225). Best of all is Wagner and Chabot (830-833-4350), a staunch member of the eclectic school of retailing; customers wend their way past the likes of a framed six-foot rattlesnake skin ($80), a little cast-iron llama ($48), and antler-handled silverware ($72 per piece). Tucked away in the back of the store is the Hardscrabble Cafe and Deli, where good retro cheese enchiladas and other daily specials restore the footsore. A final stop is Jerry Hendricks’ Chainsaw Wood Sculptures and Unusual Things (830-833-5037), two miles south on U.S. 281. Hendricks carves rabbits, bears, saguaros, and more ($25—$2,500) from enormous boles of mesquite and other trees, and if you’ve got an empty field just begging for adornment, he can sell you a pre-rusted tractor too (prices negotiable).
Fifteen miles north of Blanco is its longtime rival, Johnson City, where visitors browse to the sound of twittering from a nearby aviary. The shops are clustered on and around Main Street, a.k.a. U.S. 290. Times Ago (830-868-2072) is a grab bag of feed-sack tablecloths ($5—$9), Nazi memorabilia ($30—$90), and vintage picture books ($15 and up). At the Beeswax Company (830-868-7937), owner Jon Peavy hand-pours pure beeswax candles—a welcome change from the tacky, overscented variety. Even a big block of plain ol’ beeswax ($7) is strangely appealing. Around the corner at the Screen Door (830-868-0204), we found the coolest example of Texana: a commemorative plate featuring LBJ and family during their White House days ($20).
Meander southeast to Wimberley for more shopportunities, especially around the town square (more of a town polygon, to tell you the truth). We loved the limestone doo-dahs at Rancho Deluxe (512-847-9570), from Alamo-roofline paperweights ($13 and $21) to a set of neo-petroglyph coasters ($27.50), and its Mexican and Guatemalan antiquities, such as a work-smoothed wooden mold for making piloncillo sugar cones ($120). The Broken Arrow Rock Shop (512-847-2282) has rock-bottom prices: $4 for a palm-size chunk of amethyst. Best antiquing stop is the Gypsy Piddler (512-847-5647), in an old stone house, where we snatched up a vintage White Swan ginger tin ($4) and oohed and aahed over the comfy stone-walled library, equipped with a fireplace and seductively lined with books. Anne Dingus
Salado • Georgetown
SALADO SHOPKEEPERS HAVE BEEN LURING buyers since 1852, when this onetime stagecoach stop sprang up midway between Waco and Austin on what is now Interstate 35. The town remains prettily rustic, with curbless streets and log-cabiny storefronts; inside its shops, though, the merchandise is thoroughly sophisticated. The fifty-plus retail businesses (you’ll never get through them all in a weekend) line two miles of Main and most of its cross streets. A favorite, just down the road from the Stagecoach Inn, is Barnhill Britt (254-947-3011, 800-473-1494), where artisans use weathered longleaf pine and other wood salvaged from nineteenth-century Texas buildings to create beautifully dovetailed boxes ($200 and up). At nearby Magnolia’s on the Square (254-947-0323), a mini-mall, a cherubic toddler cheerfully submitted to trying on a hand-smocked pinafore while her big sister begged four quarters for an upscale vending machine that delivered a tiny box of Guatemalan worry dolls. Prices vary dramatically in Salado, so shop around; we saw three sets of antique cotton-carding combs for $12.50, $27.50, and $36.
The square in Georgetown, 27 miles south, is a far more manageable shopping circuit. Among the emporiums scattered around the squatty-domed courthouse is On the Square (512-869-0448), where we scored a handful of Italian religious medals for a buck apiece and two funky hankies, one printed with a sewing-notions theme and the other with a food-and-calories chart, for $3 each. Don’t miss Rough and Ready Antiques (512-819-0463), a block north at Sixth and Main; it’s one of those charmingly barny places with goods wedged in all higgledy-piggledy. An ornate metal squiggle identified as a “buggy footrest” ($26) sat in a basket with fifties aluminum kitchenware ($12 and up) and turn-of-the-century glass-stoppered medicine bottles ($20). Primitive pine shelves from the old Schertz post office ($150) suggested lots of great uses: wine rack, say, or closet organizer. Anne Dingus
Round Top • Brenham • Independence • Chappell Hill
ROUND TOP STILL HAS THE SLEEPY FEEL of the German farming town it once was, but there is no shortage of ways to spend an afternoon here. It is home to an international music festival, a collection of beautifully restored nineteenth-century houses, and a thriving community of antiques dealers, though its growing popularity with Houstonians has driven up the prices—and the quality—of its collectibles. On the square, make sure to visit Porch Office Antiques (409-249-5594) for its fine assortment of patchwork quilts ($250—$350) and housewares worthy of Martha Stewart. We admired a white chenille day-bed coverlet with blue stitching ($65), several primitive wooden picture frames in a red or blue wash ($40—$50), and cobalt bottles ($6.50 apiece). For some spectacular but pricey finds, we crossed the square to the Painted Pony (409-249-5711), where a parrot named Duke greeted us from his perch by the cash register. A Depression-era, baby-blue kitchen table with burnt-orange stenciling and two matching chairs ($400) caught our eye, as did a late-nineteenth-century pine vanity and matching bedroom set, painted with a design of interwoven vines ($2,795). In a yellow frame house around the corner, we found PJ Hornberger’s Studio and Gallery (409-249-5955), a sun-drenched space overlooking the artist’s garden, where hand-painted wooden roosters strut among the flowers. The folk art finds here include colorful walking sticks topped with carved blue jays and cardinals ($58) and baby rattles fashioned from dried gourds, with bone or wooden handles ($79—$99). Round Top also hosts the state’s largest antiques fair, held this year April 9 through 11 and October 1 through 3.
Roughly twenty miles east of Round Top lies Brenham. Although more than a dozen antiques stores line East Alamo, we found Today and Yesterday (409-830-0707) to be the only one of note. A spacious, two-story building, it is filled with everything from fifties scalloped metal yard chairs in teal and aqua ($45—$55) to a Victorian white wicker pram ($850).
If you have limited time, you may want to skip Brenham and continue north about ten miles to Independence, where the Antique Rose Emporium (409-836-5548) is a must-see. Visitors pull shiny red wagons along the gravel paths that meander through six acres of rose gardens. The emporium carries more than three hundred varieties, from China roses and Noisettes to native hybrids such as the “Highway 290 Pink Button” (potted rosebushes are $14.95 apiece).
Heading back toward Houston on U.S. 290, we stopped in Chappell Hill, where a stone path behind one of the town’s oldest houses led us to Evans Antiques (409-830-8861), an intimate, candle-lit room with pine floors and whitewashed walls. A jelly cupboard with a brass lock and skeleton key ($1,600) was particularly handsome, as was an imitation pie safe made from cured pine and decorative punched tin ($895). Only a few items were modestly priced, but they were no less impressive: A cream-colored hatbox with flower stenciling ($59) and handmade candles ($7 a pair), scented with cranberries, maple sugar, or pumpkin, were among the items we regretted not taking home. Pamela Colloff
My Library
