by Kirsten Getz
photo by Brent Fleury

It’s one of Asheville’s oldest clubs, which seems appropriate for a club about ancient things. In 1945, two Asheville women, Beulah Harrison and Ava Keener, took a train to the New York City Winter Antiques Show. They decided afterwards that Asheville’s antiques scene could use some serious spicing up, mainly through serious study. Harrison and Keener gathered  ten friends and formed the Vetust Study Club (“vetust” means “ancient”) to learn about and appreciate antiques. “A lot of people don’t know what an antique is,” says the club’s current vice-president, Mary Anne Warlick. “They don’t know that it has to be 100 years old.” After 63 years, the club still meets once a month for tea and study.

The Vetust Study Club’s 22 current members range in age from 45 to “90-something,” and they’ve each developed unique specialties. Warlick, for example, knows everything there is to know about antique paperweights (she gave a research report to the club about them). Another member gave a report on antique mirrors, and yet another offered information about different kinds of china.

The club’s biggest event each year is the Asheville Antiques Fair, coming up August 1-3 at the Asheville Civic Center. The event has raised almost $500,000 to date. The women pour the money from the show back into historic preservation projects around Asheville, like restoring and donating period pieces to the Smith-McDowell Museum and helping to renovate and preserve Richard Sharp Smith’s WCQS Public Radio building downtown. “If all of our buildings get demolished, what’s quaint and interesting about Asheville?” says Suzanne Hageman, chair of the Antiques Fair.

This year’s show will feature some 45 antique dealers from around the country showing off examples of English period furniture, art and jewelry. There will also be expert lectures and an Heirloom Road Show, with three appraisers on hand to appraise items brought in by the public.     

Asheville Antiques Fair
The 62nd annual Asheville Antiques Fair runs from August 1-3 at the Asheville Civic Center. For more information, visit ashevilleantiquesfair.com or call 828-299-7430.