Joe combined the business and social skills he learned as part of the Hardy & Hayes families with the aggressive toughness he gathered at the side of his impoverished Northside Pittsburgh mother. A prince and a pauper at the same time, Joe applied tremendous energy and business creativity to build a lumber empire which makes him one of the 400 richest persons in America, by the reckoning of one major magazine.  

The Joe Hardy saga starts in 1954 at lunch in Pittsburgh�s upper crust Duquesne Club with his uncle, the president of the family business, Hardy & Hayes Jewelers. His uncle promises the 21 year old Joe a substantial piece of the business - but only if Joe learns to be less aggressive. 

But meek was never Joe Hardy�s style. He went out on his own, pooling resources with his two younger brothers to buy some land in rural Washington County, call it a lumber yard and sell to builders in the Tri-state area.   

The idea came from his good friend Jack Ryan, at that time a small builder doing three or four homes a year, but destined to grow Ryan Homes into the largest home builder in the U.S.
                                                  
Within a few years, Joe and his brothers built the lumber yard into a $3 million business, and Joe had started a highly successful real estate company on the side. The one day in 1956, a friend asked Joe if he ever considered selling "cash and carry" lumber to
customers.  
                                                     
Joe immediately saw the opportunity - but only if he could establish his store's name in the public eye. The way into the public eye was through a medium still not in everyone's homes - television.  
                                                     
Another part of the 84 Lumber equation was lower mark-ups than the competitors, most of whom were small generation family owners. Precisely the same type of people who thought he was being too aggressive as a jeweler. Within a few years, Hardy was gobbling or threatening these small competitors. Like the great wealth creators of the 19th century, Joe Hardy grew by consolidating his industry. Today 84 Lumber is America's largest privately owned lumber yard chain, with 400 stores nationwide.  

By the early 80's, 84 Lumber had achieved a dominant position among lumber companies. Joe Hardy was looking for another business challenge. He had been to upscale resorts in Vail, Nantucket, and abroad and was thinking about opening his own play land.  

In 1987, another friend, this one an attorney, mentioned to Joe that the old Nemacolin Estate in the Laurel Highlands would go on the auction block in a few days. The Nemacolin Estate was 5,000 acres that had passed from Al Rockwell to the Scaife family and then to Kent Rockwell. 
 
Joe and his daughter Maggie, who had become his most important business advisor, loved the facilities at Nemacolin and bought the nine parcels around the existing building for $3.1 million. Joe and Maggie embarked on  ambitious $100 million renovation strategy to turn the facility into a world class resort.   

Since 1987, Maggie has been the president of Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa. Her goal for the resort is nothing less than to earn Nemacolin a six star rating on a scale of five. In 1993,  Joe also made her president of thriving 84 Lumber. Under Maggie's direction,  84 Lumber has realized record breaking sales every year, and has expanded to include 84 National Sales and 84 Maggie's Building Solutions.