The Perrys started as antiquers - the hobby that combines collecting, restoring, and learning about old American material culture. Their interest in their own farmhouse logs expanded outward into broader Appalachian craftsmanship. They began accumulating authentic old structures - cabins, outbuildings, tools, equipment - that would let them and eventually visitors understand how nineteenth-century Appalachians actually lived. The collection grew. The barn that originally held it overflowed. The first May Festival opened the village to the public on May 4, 1996. For its first decade, that festival was the only day Heritage Farm was open in any given year. By 2006 the operation had grown enough to support a regular schedule. Today the village operates Fridays and Saturdays from May through October, plus four Christmas Village evenings in December.

Heritage Farm has seven main museum buildings, each focused on a different aspect of Appalachian life. The Country Store displays the merchandise and rhythms of a rural store at the turn of the twentieth century. The Doll and Toy Museum displays the playthings that filled rural Appalachian childhoods. The Transportation Museum traces the wagons, buggies, and early automobiles that moved people across these hills. The Children's Activity Museum lets younger visitors handle tools and try the work of an earlier era. Additional buildings cover everything from blacksmithing to textiles. The Smithsonian affiliation, granted as the first in West Virginia, formally recognized what the Perrys and their successors had built - a serious, well-curated museum operation in a part of the country where such institutions are rare and have to fight harder for funding and recognition.

Visitors can rent buildings to sleep in. The Strawberry Inn, the first cabin reassembled at the farm, is built from nineteenth-century logs gathered from various cabins throughout Cabell and Wayne counties in West Virginia. The Blackberry Inn started as a cabin from Lavalette, West Virginia, with two later additions made from logs sourced in Mason County. The Hollyberry Inn was a farmhouse on the property before Heritage Farm existed. The Woodbury Inn is the newest cabin. The Applebutter Inn sits inside Heritage Village itself. Visitors who want to stay in a railroad caboose can do so - a 1940s Norfolk and Western caboose, fitted with fold-out beds, sleeps four. The 9,000-square-foot Barn Conference and Retreat Center, reconstructed from a nineteenth-century dairy barn, hosts larger gatherings.

The petting zoo at Heritage Farm operates on festival days and through the summer. Standard farm animals - goats, pigs, sheep, miniature horses, rabbits - are joined by livestock not typically associated with Appalachian agriculture. The peacocks make spectacular noise. The llamas are a long-running attraction. And there is a camel, kept on the farm for reasons that probably involve children's enthusiasm more than historical accuracy. The mix of authentic period livestock and exotic crowd-pleasers reflects the operational realities of a small private museum that needs paying visitors to survive. Heritage Farm has solved that problem by being interesting on multiple fronts simultaneously.

Heritage Farm has accumulated a small filmography. The History Channel filmed America's Greatest Feud: The History of the Hatfields & McCoys on location at the village in 2012, taking advantage of the authentic period buildings as backdrops for the documentary about the legendary Appalachian feud. American Pickers visited in late 2011 for a Pickin' Perry-dise episode that documented the Perrys' collection in their own context. Barnwood Builders, the DIY Network show about reclaiming and rebuilding old cabins, featured Heritage Farm in a 2015 episode called Grandma's Cabin. The exposure has helped make the museum a regional destination, drawing visitors from across the Appalachian region and beyond. The location near Huntington gives it road access from the interstate corridor.