However as Emma Lee Turney approaches the eighth decade of her life, she has now announced her intent to “withdraw” from the antique business.

It was Emma Lee’s vision – from the inauspicious origins of a cow pasture outside a town of less than 70 souls – that launched one of the most successful antique shows in the country.

Today, the Round Top Antique Show is world renowned, pulling in a crowd of thousands during both its famed Spring and Fall shows. For the seasoned antique aficionado, Round Top is now a destination.

However, as they say in Texas, it was a “far cry from any destination” when Emma Lee first drove her red truck into Round Top in 1968, carrying a 7ft pine wardrobe of true Texas origin in the truck bed.

It was there in the 1960s, in Round Top, that “Miss Emma,” as she became to be known, began “flipping” houses – before the term was well known. Ever the pioneer, Turney appreciated the value in rustic properties. During the next decade she began restoring many of the 19th century Hill Country homes. Within the next decade she had moved five early house onto her property and restored them.

But, it was the transition of a relatively small “cow patch” into one of the most prestigious shows in the country that became one of her grandest accomplishments.

Much like, Emma Lee, the show evolved from humble beginnings.

Forty years ago, the first show had 22 dealers, but Emma Lee had the contacts within the antiques world, big Houston oil money and the special vision. “Those dealers were the pick,” she now recalls. “I could have got two or three of them together and people would have flocked in.”

From there, Emma Lee never looked back. And never stopped promoting.

And as Emma Lee’s show grew, so did others; ultimately spawning into multiple venues and numerous tag-along antique and folk art events.

Within 35 years, the one million subscribers to Texas Power magazine voted the Original Round Top Antiques Fair “the most of the most and best of best.”

And it continues so today.

Although traffic at Round Top events is still massive, many of the original promoters are getting out and selling to a “second generation” of promoters.

In 2005, Emma Lee sold her original show to Susan and Bo Franks. Marburger Farms, originated and promoted by John Sauls, was sold to the Marsh family of Tyler, Texas.

Now, Emma Lee has her last show on the sales block, the folk art show show she started up about 20 years ago. Besides a well-established show, she will be selling about 10 acres of land, along with a 12,6000-square-foot air conditioned show barn she opened in the spring of 2006.

“I’m looking for someone with vision,” she says. “Someone who wants to seize the opportunity and bring a new energy to the business.”

While cutting her ties to the promotion business, Emma Lee says she will also be “purging” herself of all her antiques. She currently has all her antiques on consignment within one of Texas’ largest cities.

“But I will not sit still,” she says. “I still have a lot of things I need to do.”

Chief among those is getting back to her writing, something in which Emma Lee is an “old hand.”

She is the author of more than 160 articles on antiques and trends in collecting. In 1968, she wrote the first manual on how to participate in antiques and art shows, as well as how to produce, direct and manage exhibitions and shows.

In 1978, Emma Lee published her first book, Antiques Business as a Lifestyle providing the how-tos of opening an antique business and how to buy, in addition to a step-by-step guide at importing antiques from abroad.

In the early 1980s, Emma Lee published a monthly trade magazine, Southwest Antiques News, covering antiques shows, sales and shops in Texas and the Southwest.

Nearly 10 years ago, Miss Emma published Denim & Diamonds, The Story of the Round Top Antiques Fairs, becoming an instant best seller among collectors and dealers alike. Then in 2002, she published Round Top Cooks with Emma Lee, a collection of recipes submitted by both dealers and participants of the show.

Although it’s been antiques and Round Top that have consumed Emma Lee’s time, passions and efforts, it’s time to get back to writing.

“I’ve got two books I’m working on,” she says. “It’s back to writing.”

One book is going to be a historical fiction book. The other, she says, deals with a “woman alone in a business.” She’s not too forthcoming about many of the details, coyly adding, “it will be what it says.”

Which is much like Miss Emma has done all her life: creating something of wonder with an original idea and lots of passionate work.

Eric C. Rodenberg