Ernest Hershberger knows his purpose in life. Since 1992, the steward of Homestead Furniture and Design Center in Mount Hope has honed his craft of custom furniture making. Focusing on heirloom-quality indoor and outdoor pieces, he’s challenged the notion that Amish craftsmanship can’t also be stylish.
We create what we like to call raving fans,” says Hershberger. “People love us because of the flexibility that we bring them.”
However stylish and unique his furniture might be, Hershberger never imagined that it would catch the attention of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2019, after a worldwide search, the New York museum asked Abner Henry, Homestead’s luxury sister company, to collaborate on a distinguished home collection. The seven resulting pieces are inspired by paintings within the Met’s collection, some of which have not been displayed in decades.
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The idea was to take these famous inspirational paintings and dive into the spiritual side of the painters,” says Hershberger. “[We] connected that with our spirituality on our side and created a limited-edition collection that is really exclusive and very special."
Displayed in a gallery at Homestead, the collection features tables, standing mirrors and bar cabinets. The company is only building 70 of each of the seven pieces. The sevens are a reference to forgiveness in the Bible’s Matthew 18:21-22. They also sell for a biblical $50,000-$150,000 per piece and $645,864 for the entire collection. Hershberger pushed the limits of traditional manufacturing processes by combining two distinct patterns within the same sheet of glass. The approach defied what many glass artisans told him could be done.
“Once I make 70 of any one of those, I will never again make another one,” he says. “I won’t even use the same processes for another piece.”
Serious collectors are the target customer for the limited pieces, but customers on a slightly tighter budget turn to Homestead for custom heirloom furniture, too.
The 30,000-square-foot showroom has no products in stock. Instead, customers find a piece online or on the display floor and schedule an appointment with a design consultant for a custom order. Each product is built based on their home’s floor plan and layout, as well as their style and preferences.
Once the dimensions have been finalized, customers choose from 10 species of wood, 600 finishes and unlimited color selections. The desired product is then built in about 12 weeks. Each product is built to last, a piece of useful art to be enjoyed for years to come. While The Met accolades have been exciting, these heirloom pieces align with Hershberger’s ultimate mission, which is rooted in longevity, sustainability and a duty to serve.
"I had always dreamed that someday in my career I would build something very, very special,” says Hershberger. “We sought with each piece to do something that had never been done before, and we learned that this kind of experimentation requires a lot of grace."
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