Local Architect to Retire After 60 Years in the Field
By Christopher Miller
LOCK HAVEN – For over sixty years, Lock Haven-based architect Charles Grieb put on his necktie and drove to his office to design some of the most eye-pleasing structures in the greater Clinton County area.
“That’s what you did during those days, from the beginning the American Institute of Architects (AIA) suggested you wear a tie when you are working a job as an architect,” Grieb said in an exclusive interview with The Record. “I was a member of the AIA since the day I became a registered architect, and I followed their advice but of course the times change and it isn’t as formal dress as it used to be.”
Charlie, what he is more aptly known as by friends and family, was educated locally at Saint Agnes Catholic School, Immaculate Conception High School, and the former Williamsport Technical Institute, having graduated in 1963 after studying engineering and architecture.
“I started out in structural engineering and it was kind of slow back then and I had some friends who were taking architectural classes so I switched my classes to architecture, and I had more fun with it and did some very exciting things and that is just the way it went for me,” Grieb explained.
Little did Charlie know that he would be beginning a career and a future where it was of his own design, literally.
From growing up in different homes as his parents moved around from Lockport, Rote, and the Lamar area, Charlie didn’t sway too far from Clinton County throughout his life.
“I enjoy living in Lock Haven, it has been good to me,” he said.
Throughout his architectural career, Charlie had been involved in a myriad of projects, mostly commercial/industrial, but some consulting work for building a home,” he said. “People generally cannot afford to hire an architect but now and then I would get asked to do some consulting work like building an addition, renovating a bathroom or a kitchen, but I’ve done a lot of work for public housing and the Clinton County Housing Authority,” Charlie said.
The first building Charlie worked on designing in town was the state liquor store. He also had his hand in the construction of present day Bucktail Medical Center. “I remember having to spend days and days down at the Department of Health in Harrisburg where they told you how a hospital was supposed to be built, where you can locate patient rooms and such,” he explained.
For decades, Charlie worked on buildings, banks, schools, buildings for Lock Haven University, Dunkin’ Donuts locations, churches, some structures for First Quality, medical offices, public housing, some buildings in the Renovo area, and others.
“I remember working on the Avis bank project,” Charlie recalled. “It had a Mosler Vault Door and somehow the door got closed and nobody could get it open, the bank was still being built, so they found the smallest guy on the team, cut a hole in the concrete on top of the vault and they had to lower him in there to open the door from the inside, I thought that was so funny at the time.”
Charlie attributes his success in “surviving” in the architecture field by working closely with the clients.
“I had a lot of good people working with me in the past, and we prided ourselves on the working drawings, contractors liked to bid on our projects because they knew what to expect with a project,” he said.
Grieb also said he had good employees and always followed the systems in place for good design and good work.
“We did it the right way, had good employees with us, and the good systems in place for doing buildings from the preliminary design, construction drawings, all the way up to advertising for bids, we always went by the system and that’s the way it was,” he explained.
Charlie started his career working under Dean Kennedy in State College, who was doing all of the Lock Haven schools at the time including the 1958 addition of the high school.
“I got out of school not knowing anything, he hired me and the first thing I was doing was detailing metal pan stairs,” Grieb recalled the early days. “I went on and Kennedy took a liking to me and helped me throughout my early days, then after a couple years a guy named Caruthers opened an office in Lock Haven where I was living at the time and I thought it would be nicer to live there and not have to drive in to State College every day for work.”
After getting his architectural license, Grieb went off to start his own firm. “I liked Caruthers, he was a good designer and mentor, but I was an eager beaver and thought differently than him on some things…it we would have stayed working together the projects we could have worked on together would have been unlimited.”
Charlie bought the old Bell Telephone office in Lock Haven around 1985, his present location, which he described to have been built like Fort Knox.
“It is strong as heck with floors capable of supporting 300-400 pounds per square foot and was designed for a future third floor, and I had tenants with businesses in the other offices, so they ended up paying the mortgage for me, and now I am the only one in the office who can still draw designs by hand with everything on the computers now,” he said.
Charlie’s favorite project was the Health Professions Building on the Lock Haven University campus, where he worked on a few projects for the college. He also greatly enjoyed working on the university president’s home along Water Street, the Saint John Church in Lewistown, some First Quality buildings, and the work for the public housing authority.
“If you do good work, you will get rehired again,” Charlie mentioned.
So as he begins to enter into retirement and close his business location, Charlie looked back on any things he would have done differently looking back on his career.
“Well there’s not much I can think of…I made some really good friends and have had some really good employees that I trained who then went off to other firms somewhere else and those other firms called me thanking me for training them so well, so that really makes you feel good,” Charlie said.
“Secretaries are also very important, (shout out to Mary), they support you and in order to succeed today you need a really good secretary to communicate with the outside people.”
Grieb was not only licensed in Pennsylvania, but in Arizona as well.
“My son is a dentist out there, he went to Pitt and was in the marching band, he got to perform in New Orleans, Miami, and Tempe, Arizona, and we saw him marching down the street on New Year’s Day in Tempe, when he came back to Pitt and said that he loved Arizona so much that he went on to dental school, moved to Arizona and made alife there,” Charlie said. “He said back then there were no dentists out there and he made a lot of money in Arizona, and I designed his offices for him.”
As for riding off into retirement, Charlie is looking forward to taking on some consulting work if he can, but as he said in the interview he feels it is time to “hang it up.”
“Frank Lloyd Wright worked until he was 95,” Charlie remarked. “I am a woodworker with a woodshed at home like you wouldn’t believe, it is my hobby.” This was very evident looking at all of the wooden toys in his office, like trucks and tractors lining the book shelves among old catalogs of building materials and supplies.
In the past, Charlie was an avid bass fisherman who used to take his Triton boat down to Raystown Lake and out to the Chesapeake Bay for his expeditions.
“I’ll probably just keep going to the gym, the student recreation center at LHU,” he said. “I just don’t know what I’ll do.”
The most rewarding thing for Charlie was to see the buildings he designed and completed being used.
“I look around town and say to myself gee – I designed that, and I really like seeing my buildings being used and enjoyed, I think if I was a bit younger I would work closer with the AIA and the code of ethics and I would work to encourage people that buy buildings and have them constructed, to have the architect teach them how to use the building, what they are designed for,” Grieb explained.
“I would encourage architects to tell people about the elements of a building, what they are for, and why they are designed that way.”
As Charlie begins to walk off into retirement, The Record wishes him well and a very happy, healthy, and enjoyable retirement.
