84 Lumber founder Joseph Hardy III dies on his 100th birthday
Joseph Hardy III, founder of the building materials chain 84 Lumber and developer of the Nemacolin resort, has died. He was 100.
A family statement from the company said the family had lost their “patriarch and all-round great man.” A profile published on the company’s website says he passed away on his 100th birthday on Saturday “surrounded by his loving family singing Broadway show tunes to comfort him at his home in Farmington.”
“Many knew Joe as a brilliant businessman and enthusiastic entrepreneur,” said Amy Smiley, vice president of marketing at 84 Lumber in a statement. “Despite his tremendous success, Joe has always remembered what matters most: the people. He helped make the American Dream a reality for so many and we will miss him dearly.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Hardy is credited with “rethinking the lumber business in the late 1950s with a cash-and-carry approach focused on professional contractors and contractors.” He then expanded the company into the country’s largest private supplier of building materials.
He also developed the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa, now known simply as Nemacolin, and entered the trotting business by operating the Meadows Racetrack in North Strabane Township, Washington County.
Born January 7, 1923 in Pittsburgh, Hardy attended Lehigh University, where he enlisted in his senior year in the US Army Air Corps, where he served as a radio operator during World War II.
After the war, he worked in the family jewelry store, earned an industrial engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and founded Green Hills Lumber with his family and a friend, which eventually became 84 Lumber (named for the city in which it was headquartered). . which currently has more than 250 branches nationwide.
“My dad was always like, ‘What’s next?'” said his daughter Maggie Hardy, to whom he passed control of 84 Lumber and Nemacolin Resort, in profile. “He wanted to master the next challenge or do something even better. He taught us never to be satisfied and to strive to be better today than yesterday.”
“Joe was a true American success story,” Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor and director of Homeland Security, told the Post-Gazette. “And he was a true gentleman. He could have asked to be treated like a tycoon, but instead he wanted to be known as Joe.”
The family statement said Hardy proved “that nothing is impossible by celebrating his 100th birthday”.
A funeral service for Hardy, whose survivors include eight children and 15 grandchildren, is scheduled at Westminster Presbyterian Church on Thursday, followed by full military honors and a private funeral.
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