Man of action ran village where many settle down

Since the 1990s, while operating a retirement community in Upper Roxborough, William Owens maintained a seven-acre ranch in Kerrville, Texas.

"He grew up on a hay farm outside of Pittsburgh," a son, Sean, said, "but he liked that part of the world," a 30-minute drive from San Antonio.

And so, his son said, "he was cremated with his cowboy hat, his . . . jeans, and a pair of his favorite boots."

"We wanted him to be dressed appropriately" for wherever he found himself in the afterlife.

On Thursday, Nov. 11, Mr. Owens, 72, president and chief executive officer of Cathedral Village, died of renal failure at his home there.

He had held both titles at the retirement community since 1984. Mr. Owens was, his son said, a bit adventurous.

"My father competed in rodeos in his 20s" in Pennsylvania, "and went on to be a horse trainer."

And he liked the thrill of speeding. "When he was a younger man, he used to race indoor motorcycles." Once in competition, "he had a horrible accident" that broke his back and shattered an ankle.

For the rest of his life, his son said, "he had a little hitch in his get-along."

In 2002, Mr. Owens completed a study that found that the five-county Philadelphia region in Pennsylvania had the largest concentration of accredited retirement communities in the nation.

Of 300 recognized by the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission across the nation, 150 were in four states, more than 50 of them in Pennsylvania. The region had more than 30 accredited communities and more than 40 nonaccredited, helping to make the state what Inquirer columnist Peter Binzen, in reporting on the study, called "the capital of retirement living."

The Village sits on 37 acres bought by Episcopalians in the 1920s for what they hoped would be the largest Episcopal cathedral in the nation. The Great Depression intervened.

In 1970, cathedral plans were canceled, and the village was proposed as nonprofit and nonsectarian, with the Episcopal bishop of Pennsylvania having power to approve board members.

Cathedral Village opened in 1979, and it now has 293 apartments in 14 buildings, as well as a separate 148-bed skilled nursing facility, a spokeswoman said Friday.

In 1995, the Pennsylvania Association of Non-Profit Homes for the Aging gave Mr. Owens its Innovator of the Year Award after he supervised three major additions to the property, the spokeswoman said.

Born in Pittsburgh, Mr. Owens graduated from Aspinwall High School in 1956 and earned a bachelor's degree in business administration at Youngstown University in Ohio in 1966.

His son said Mr. Owens had interrupted his college education to serve in an Army Special Forces unit in Vietnam.

From 1967, he worked for a toy distributor in Pittsburgh, leaving in 1977 as a vice president and general manager. He then was with a toy distributor in Birmingham, Ala., leaving in 1981 as president.

Mr. Owens' career in retirement management began in 1981, his son said, with Sherwood Oaks, a life-care retirement community in Cranberry Township, Butler County, which he left in 1984 as president.

He was a member of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging and a former evaluator for the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission.

Besides his son Sean, Mr. Owens is survived by his wife, Carole; another son, Stephen; daughters Jenipher Hickman, Elizabeth Larsen, and Shannon Lammonds; his mother, Anna; and seven grandchildren.

A memorial was set for 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, at Cathedral Hall in Cathedral Village, 600 E. Cathedral Rd.