A model sits on Doyle Svenby’s sculpture “Hole Lot of Love” overlooking the green at … (+)
When you think of the marriage of fine art and golf, George Pietzcker photographs, Valentino Dixon drawings and Andy Warhol’s Jack Nicklaus silkscreens may spring to mind. But when it comes to resorts that attract as many avid golfers as they do art connoisseurs, Nemacolin, home to two Pete Dye beauties and over 1,600 works of art (three-quarters of which are currently on display), with dozens of works displayed alongside flight paths, greens and tee boxes, is in a league of its own.
Nemacolin, owned by Lumber 84 CEO Maggie Hardy, is poised to attract more golfers and art lovers after a major transformation. A recently completed, three-year, $500 million modernization has refreshed several areas of the 2,200-acre resort, including a renovation of The Chateaux, a hotel modeled after the Ritz in Paris, where a 17-room club floor with a private dining lounge was added, a major renovation of The Grand Lodge, converting rooms into suites, and a complete remodel of the golf academy.
The Hardy family art collection, begun by the late building materials company founder Joseph Hardy and continued by his daughter Maggie Hardy and son PJ, is an extensive and diverse treasure of paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, old maps and works on paper.
“The Hardys collected from the bottom of their hearts. It wasn’t necessarily an investment, they wanted to collect what gave them joy and what they wanted to share with other people,” said Chantal Bernicky, the Hardy family’s artistic director, adding that this focus continued across generations. But while Mr. Hardy, who was head of the collection for decades, collected both living and deceased artists, Maggie and PJ primarily showed a preference for acquiring works by active artists.
Contemporary names represented in the collection include Brooklyn-based Dustin Yellin, known for his “Frozen Cinema” – sculptures made of layered collages made of laminated glass – and Valencian artist Manolo Valdés, a key figure in the Equipo Crónica, who has had major retrospectives at the Guggenheim Bilbao and the Museo Reina Sofía.
Nemacolin offers several art tours and is new this year in sponsoring events with Pittsburgh institutions such as the Warhol Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art, bringing rotating shows to the resort. But golfers who stay on the links will also play alongside dozens of outdoor sculptures as they make their way around Shepherd’s Rock and Mystic Rock.
At Mystic Rock, which hosted the PGA Tour’s 84th Lumber Classic in the early 2000s, even singles players don’t play alone. A statue of 34-time PGA Tour winner Vijay Singh greets golfers on their way to the first tee, while a dapper Gene Sarazen, “the Squire,” looks out over the fairway on No. 2. A muscular and bronzed figure of John Daly in full prehensile and ripping glory looms in a pond next to a waterfall off the 5th.th Green and an 8-foot-tall depiction of Chief Nemacolin, leader of the Delaware Nation and namesake of the resort, stands guard near the back tees of No. 16. The latter two figures are both the work of famed Ohio sculptor Alan Cottrill, who was a friend of Joseph Hardy. Statues of golf stars can be found at many courses, but to have so many on one course is unique.
Wendy Taylor’s Square Piece sculpture at Nemacolin’s Mystic Rock Golf Course.
One of the most photographed works in the square, in front of which many groups of four take a group photo, is a gigantic picture frame by London-based sculptor Wendy Taylor, created between 1990 and 1991 and bought by Maggie long before selfie spots became fashionable.
“You can have a moment where you’re rounding a corner and you’re about to tee off and you think, ‘Wait a minute, what?’ It’s always about having that aesthetic experience at the same time as the golf experience,” Bernicky added.
And no matter what their scorecard says, golfers will leave Mystic Rock feeling good when they see Doyle Svenby’s “Hole Lotta Love,” a giant metal heart sculpture perched on a embankment overlooking the 18th hole.
Sister course Shepherd’s Rock, which winds through the Allegheny Mountain range and has more dramatic elevation changes than its neighboring course, is also filled with sculptures. In a nod to the course’s idyllic namesake, the tee areas are dotted with bronze sheep sculptures by Jill Schwaiko, a sculptor who was inspired by the rock art of Anasazi ruins, particularly bighorn sheep petroglyphs.
There are real Icelandic sheep that can often be seen grazing near the course and as golfers approach the green on hole 5 they can sometimes hear lions roaring. The big cats live in one of the resort’s nearby wildlife enclosures.
Golfers with a penchant for modern abstract industrial minimalism will be delighted to see a work by Esmoreit Koetsier, known for his colorful metal creations, appearing on the back nine to the left of a green complex.
“We’re just going to expand this collection outdoors. Art is part of the experience of this interaction that we want, and we’re fortunate that the golf courses are a welcoming terrain for these sculptures,” Bernicky explained.
