Nemacolin turns Hardy Collective into Buddha Bar for NFL Draft weekend

At Nemacolin, personalized jewelry was not tucked behind a display case. It became the point of the party, as Buddha Mama founders Nancy Badia and Dakota Badia transformed The Hardy Collective by Louis Anthony Jewelers into the Buddha Bar for a two-day takeover at the Chateau.

The setting matched the jewelry’s own language of ornament and story. Nancy and Dakota Badia described cascading flowers, a giant antique Buddha centerpiece, fabric-draped cafe tables and trays of jewelry arranged for a VIP-client atmosphere. That kind of direct designer access changes the way one-of-a-kind pieces are discovered: the shopper is not just choosing a necklace or ring, but seeing it styled, handled and explained in a room designed to make the work feel collectible and personal.

The activation ran April 25-26, 2026, inside Nemacolin, the 2,200-acre luxury resort in Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands. It folded into the resort’s broader Immaculate Reception Weekend, a Draft-themed package that ran April 23-26 and ranged from $10,000 to $30,000. The higher-end programming stretched well beyond retail, with a riverboat soiree on the Allegheny River, a storytelling evening with Terry Bradshaw and Jerome Bettis, golf and pickleball events, and an exclusive hospitality space at Southern Tier Pittsburgh for top-tier guests.

That sports-and-style backdrop gave the jewelry a different kind of value. Centurion Jewelry said special guests included Bradshaw and Wiz Khalifa, who closed out the weekend wearing Buddha Mama pieces. Centurion also reported that Bradshaw handled the iconic Immaculate Reception ball for the first time in 24 years, tying the retail activation to a piece of Pittsburgh football history that still carries emotional charge. Nemacolin built the weekend around that 1972 play, and Maggie Hardy framed the programming as a tribute to the region’s football legacy and a way to bring people together through storytelling and elevated hospitality.

Nemacolin and Pittsburgh Brewing Co. extended the idea with The Divinity Draft, a limited-edition pilsner-style beer brewed using microflora from the game-used Immaculate Reception football displayed at the resort. That gesture says almost everything about the weekend’s strategy: luxury retail, nostalgia and spectacle were merged into one immersive environment. For a handmade Miami jewelry line inspired by Buddhism, Eastern symbolism, ancient techniques and Pop Art sensibility, the resort format gave the work something a normal boutique appointment often cannot, a stage where the pieces felt both intimate and culturally charged.