Accomplished Upper St. Clair Architect Lucian Caste Dies

Lucian Caste, one of the primary developers of the Caste Village shopping center in Whitehall Borough, died on Wednesday at the age of 88.

Caste, a World War II veteran and an accomplished architect, died peacefully and surrounded by relatives at Family Hospice & Palliative Care in Mt. Lebanon, according to his obituary on the Beinhauer Family Services website.

Family and friends will be received at the Beinhauer Funeral Home at 2828 Washington Rd. in Peters Township on Monday and Tuesday from 6-8 p.m. A Mass of Christian Burial will then be celebrated at St. Louise de Marillac Church at 320 McMurray Road in Upper St. Clair Township on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

Caste most recently resided in Upper St. Clair. He referred to his longtime USC home as Farmstead. The St. Louise de Marillac Church is an example of his architecture, as is the John M. Conroy School for Exceptional Children, the Mercy Hospital Ambulatory Center, Christ United Methodist Church, Reliable Savings Bank and the Upper St. Clair Post Office.

According to the Beinhauer obituary:

At the age of 18, (Caste) enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and was part of the second amphibious wave of the 5th Marine Division which attacked the Japanese stronghold on Iwo Jima. Along with his fellow soldiers from the 28th Infantry regiment, he fought for 36 days in a ferocious and pivotal battle on the Pacific Front in World War II. In 1985, Caste returned to Iwo Jima for a gathering of American and Japanese survivors who came together to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the battle and dedicate themselves to work for world peace. He wrote a personal journal of that reunion and dedicated it to his grandson, James Lucian McCreight.

Following World War II, (Caste) studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and at Carnegie Institute of Technology, earning a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1950. Raised in a family of craftsmen and builders, Caste applied his architectural education to work beside and learn from his father who built homes throughout (Pittsburgh's) South Hills (area).

After graduation from Carnegie Tech, he joined his father to complete development of Caste Village in Whitehall, which was one the first community shopping centers in suburban Pittsburgh. Caste Village provided retail shopping stores, bowling alleys, residential apartments, professional office buildings and community gathering places, surrounded by affordable homes for young families.

Read more about Lucian Caste's life, including his extensive philanthropy, here.

The family is requesting no flowers and, instead, suggest that memorial donations be made to the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture or to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Hillman Cancer Center.