Jan Showers has a serious eye for antiques. The designer, renowned for her Dallas showroom filled with French period pieces and Louis XVI glamour, also knows that when it comes to antiques shopping, the eye is only as good as the stomach. “If you’re hungry, forget it,” she says. That’s why hosting a luncheon at her Hillsboro, Texas, home is both fun for Showers and a strategic godsend for her friends headed from the Dallas environs to the biannual Round Top Antiques Fair.
For more than 50 years, this legendary roundup of antiques dealers and buyers has been taking place in the quaint Texas town smack in the middle of nowhere. And it has been 50 years since the designer and her husband bought the white-columned house that Showers had coveted since she was a little girl, growing up a few doors down in this rural crossroads almost midway between Dallas and Round Top. “This house always appealed to me. It has such presence, a warm grandness,” she says. In fact, the circa-1938 home, designed by Dallas architects Goodwin & Tatum, became an effective bargaining chip for the newlywed Showers after her husband announced he wanted to begin his law practice back in Hillsboro. “Only if I can live in that house,” she stipulated. She had to wait a few years before it went on the market, but as this seasoned antiques huntress (and clearly, seasoned negotiator) knows, patience and perseverance pay off.
“The rooms are nicely arranged, with wonderful architectural details—the trim, the molding,” Showers says. “I believe it’s very welcoming because one feels as though they have stepped back in time.” The couple raised their daughters here, and Showers nurtured her design career, with the 8,000-square-foot home serving as her lab/studio. “I must have redecorated three or four times, evolving from my English country phase to French antiques,” she says, but always with an eye for entertaining. “Setting a table is one of my favorite things. I love hosting our entire family here every Thanksgiving and Easter. Really, anything you can think of to host or do here, we do,” she says, recalling occasions from symphony fundraisers to weekends with friends. Though she and her husband now have a pied-à-terre in Dallas, they retreat to Hillsboro as often as possible, usually with guests in tow.
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For her Round Top–fortifying luncheon, Showers greets guests with bubbly, “of course,” or a mocktail. “Always make sure people are offered refreshment when they first arrive, especially if they’ve been traveling,” she says. “That’s the first lesson I learned from my mother, a consummate hostess.” A light but satisfying meal (“nothing too heavy before shopping!”) in her sunny dining room doubles as an antiquing tutorial, Showers style. Tory Burch lettuce plates and vintage linens grace a French merisier dining table. Louis XVI-style chairs from the 1940s sport their original leather. “That’s what’s so great about French ’40s—all those lighter woods have a more modern, fresh look,” she says. An Arbus chandelier and antique Murano glass decanter catch both the eye and light, and a hand-painted buffet that Showers dubs her “Sister Parish sideboard” makes for a très French combo of yellow against dove gray walls.
In the book-lined sunroom, Showers serves dessert and coffee, and as with lunch, she includes serving pieces inherited from her mother and grandmother. “My mother loved entertaining. It came so naturally to her, and I guess it does to me as well. I wouldn’t be doing what I do today if it weren’t for her,” Showers says. “My first love is interior design, but I absolutely love shopping for antiques.” So it’s off to Round Top we go.
Featured in our March/April 2022 issue. Photography by Stephen Karlisch; Produced by Dayle Wood; Styling by Jimmie Henslee; Written by Stephanie Hunt.
