David and Lori Hearn are business savvy. Coupled with their creativity and craftiness, it’s made them successful in Dearborn, Mo.

The husband-and-wife team have opened David Hearn’s Farm House. It’s located at 205 Main St., just one mile east of Interstate 29, in a former hotel and bank.

The Hearns take customers back to rural America with the store’s original wood floors, tin ceilings and authentic handmade farm tables, pie safes and hutches. Fall colored plates, wreathes and bedding fill each room, while photos of Dearborn’s forefathers and the Hearns’ own family decorate the walls.

“We’ve tried to create an atmosphere,” Mrs. Hearn said. “What we’ve done at our house is in here, but on a smaller scale.”

The decor store opened last fall, but the couple recently added the furniture store to the atmosphere of the quaint little town. “Fancy dangling lights,” reads the sign outside the furniture store. Mr. Hearn wanted everything, including the advertising, to be true to the era.

It was in seventh grade that he built his first butcher block table. That work of art landed him first place in a state competition. His hobby grew, and now customers come from a tri-state area to view his collections as well as the couple’s home furnishings store.

“But we’re not going to mass produce,” Mr. Hearn said. He keeps a notebook filled with his ideas for furniture pieces and makes up to five of each before moving on to the next one.

Other furniture items in the stores also are handmade by other small business, mostly from the East Coast. Chairs are something Mr. Hearn said he doesn’t dabble in, but his antiqued version of a television stand, wide enough for the largest of flat screens, is drawing in a crowd.

However, Mr. Hearn said he is encouraging more competition in Dearborn, which has gotten a gust of wind in its sails with recent growth from small businesses.

“I’m trying to stimulate growth,” he said.

And they’re looking to expand. The couple are looking to add a blog and online store to the Web site www.VisitTheFarmHouse.com.

“We want to start out to establish an identity,” Mr. Hearn said. The store is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

Jennifer Hall can be reached at jennhall@npgco.com.