In rural Farmington in Fayette County, Pa., the sprawling, 2,000-acre resort Nemacolin has similarly enjoyed a boom in business. Although the property opted to temporarily take some guestrooms offline to avoid crowding — going from 323 keys to around 214 — Nemacolin enjoyed what Chris Baran, the resort’s vice president of sales and marketing, deemed “one of its best years, occupancy-wise.”
“Nemacolin has been here since 1987, and it’s always had a very, very strong drive market. We saw that drive market really expand in 2020 beyond the typical two to four hours to markets six to eight hours away,” said Baran, citing an uptick in guests driving in from as far afield as Charlotte and Chicago.
Baran credited the four-season resort’s appeal in part to its “safe, oasis-like isolation” as well as its vast array of outdoor activities, including dog-sledding, skiing, archery, fly-fishing, shooting instruction, horseback riding and more.
Those elements also captured the attention of the producers of ABC’s reality TV series “The Bachelor,” who selected Nemacolin to serve as the setting for their 25th season, filmed this past fall. The dating competition show committed to a full buyout of the property from mid-September through late November, creating a quarantine “bubble” for its cast — including its star, bachelor Matt James — and crew. The season premiered on Jan. 4 and will run through mid-March.
“This was, obviously, a double win for us,” Baran said. “Not only did it help us keep our staff fully employed and reenergized in our shoulder season, but it’s also, basically, a 10-week, nationwide infomercial, giving us the ability to showcase our resort from coast to coast every Monday for two hours.” It wasn’t the property’s first experience with “The Bachelor” franchise. In 2016, Nemacolin was featured as part of a single episode, which Baran said resulted in an immediate booking of 5,000 room nights. “This time, they filmed all 32 dates on property,” said Baran. “So we’re expecting a pretty big bookings surge.”
The award-winning luxury resort includes five distinct sites – The Chateau, Falling Rock, The Homes, The Estates, and The Lodge. The resort, which was named after Indian Chief Nemacolin, was used as a private hunting lodge before it officially opened to the public in 1970.
Apart from five different areas, the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort also offers a casino, 15 dining venues, a championship golf course, a field club with sporting clay stations, and a number of different activities.