A FOUNDER’S JOURNEY: COOP FROM TOMET

BY RACHEL HAGENBAUGH

Faith, family and a fondness for pioneering the future — that’s the untarnished foundation upon which Homestead Furniture was built. From its humble beginnings to the unprecedented collaboration of Homestead’s sister company, Abner Henry, with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, founder Ernest Hershberger never imagined he’d achieve this level of success.

It all started in Holmes County more than 30 years ago when Hershberger and his wife, Barbara, who were engaged to be married at the time, started Homestead Furniture in her family’s converted chicken coop. The business entailed selling quality pieces made in North and South Carolina.

A third-generation woodcraftsman with a background in highend custom kitchen cabinetry, Hershberger’s definition of service entailed giving the customer exactly what they wanted.

“We had brand-name furniture we were selling in our retail store, and customers wanted to be able to customize them,” he says. “So I drew them out and sent the purchase orders to where the furniture was made.”

2000

Homestead builds a 12,000-square-foot warehouse to accommodate its continued growth.

2001

To showcase an extraordinary range of high-end designs and capabilities, Homestead opens a 35,000-square-foot retail store.

2007

Homestead expands its manufacturing plant to 40,000 square feet to meet growing demand.

Hershberger was appalled when manufacturers gave the orders back, revealing they would only make runs of furniture if they could sell a minimum of 500.

“I told them that’s about as un-American as it gets,” he says, relating that he refused to disappoint his customers. With purchase orders and deposits in hand, he began enlisting local craftspeople to bring these designs to life.

“Word of mouth travels very quickly when you serve customers on the level they wanted to be served,” he says. “It didn’t take long for people to realize that we were building furniture to the same specs as what you’d expect from a high-end kitchen cabinet factory.”

Three decades later, Hershberger traded in the 4,000-square-foot chicken coop for a 40,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and 35,000-square-foot retail store and design center. In 2008, Hershberger broke into the high-end design community with the founding of Abner Henry, a furniture manufacturing business named after his grandfather (Abner) and dad (Henry).

“I saw a huge gap in the market of clients who wanted high-quality, American-made furniture with great style,” he says. “It’s our little niche in the marketplace that has quite humbly exceeded our expectations.”

Having garnered worldwide recognition, Abner Henry caught the attention of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was searching for a furniture company to collaborate in the creation of a one-of-akind, art-inspired collection. Hershberger got the call in 2020.

“I wondered how and why someplace as famous as The Met would come to a conservative Amish guy from Ohio to be a part of this special collection,” Hershberger remembers. The answer was the foundation upon which he built his entire legacy — a multigenerational, certified-green business producing high-end, heirloom quality furniture that’s Amish-made and immaculately designed using sustainable and solid customizable hardwood.

“They listed all of these things and said they’d done a global search, and we always stayed on their radar.”

After nearly three years in the making, the AH x The Met Collection, featuring stunning designs inspired from world-renowned historical paintings, is on display in the Abner Henry Showroom at Homestead Furniture & Design Center in Mt. Hope, Ohio. Reflecting a perfect biblical number, the seven pieces tap into the spiritual minds of the artists who created the works they reflect.

“The Met came to us with a clean sheet of paper and said they wanted to give us complete access to the entire museum and warehouse and whatever we needed,” says Hershberger, adding that this larger-thanlife endeavor would not have been possible without the tremendously creative and innovative efforts of an array of artisans.

“I’m still in awe that The Met gave us full flexibility of putting that together.”

The result is a remarkable limited-edition collection that exemplifies the very spirit of the Abner Henry brand — a perfect blend of art and design rooted in the past and pioneered by the possibilities of the future.

Hershberger's greatest piece of advice is to be a good steward of the talents God has given you. “Keep the same level of passion for every aspect of work you do. Then, go home to your family and live with that same kind of intensity, compassion and passion,” he says. “I think we should live every day to the fullest, and if you do that, honestly, you will achieve way more than you ever dreamed or anticipated.”