Obituary: Richard Paul Vitte / Furniture retailer in Castle Shannon
Nov. 14, 1946-Nov. 5, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
By Daniel Malloy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Richard Vitte used a keen business sense to build Vitte's Unfinished Furniture in Castle Shannon into one of the biggest retailers of its kind.
But Mr. Vitte was always most comfortable in the outdoors, whether he was seeking out craftsmen who build tables in their back yards or stalking big game in British Columbia.
Mr. Vitte, of Daisytown, Washington County, died Monday of complications related to pancreatic cancer. He was 60.
Mr. Vitte was a 1965 graduate of Mt. Lebanon High School, and earned an undergraduate degree in economics at Bethany College in West Virginia.
"He was a warm person and spoke to people," Althea Vitte said. "He always had time for people, no matter who you were."
Most of all, Mr. Vitte had time for hunting. His home in Daisytown, an old farmhouse that he restored in the late 1970s, is filled with trophies of bears, elk and caribou from his expeditions. Mr. Vitte traveled throughout North America, and also hunted locally.
