Henry S. Miller Company mourns the loss of Dallas icon, Henry S. Miller Jr.

DALLAS, TX - December 5, 2009 --  Henry S. Miller Jr passed away peacefully Saturday December 5 at the age of 95. Mr. Miller was a Dallas icon who will be missed, his love for real estate, the arts and people is unequaled. "My father's greatest gift was his integrity and love of others, he will be sorely missed" said Chairman, Vance C. Miller.

Steve Brown, Dallas Morning News Real Estate Editor wrote:
Dallas real estate giant Henry S. Miller Jr. dies
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
stevebrown@dallasnews.com

Henry S. Miller Jr., who turned a one-man Dallas property sales office into one of the country's largest real estate companies, died Saturday after a brief illness.  Mr. Miller, who was 95, was the patriarch of a family real estate business that got its start almost a century ago.  After taking over the real estate sales company his father founded, Mr. Miller expanded the small operation into a residential and commercial property conglomerate.  While chief executive of Henry S. Miller Co., Mr. Miller fostered dozens of real estate agents who went on to create their own high-profile firms.  "I was very fortunate to have a great mentor on the playing field, Tom Landry," said Roger Staubach, who began working in real estate during the off season while he played for the Dallas Cowboys. "And Mr. Miller was my mentor in business.   "Working for Henry S. Miller was the best thing that ever happened to me," said Mr. Staubach, who created his own real estate company after retiring from professional football. "Mr. Miller gave me the foundation to be in the real estate business."   Herb Weitzman began working with Mr. Miller in 1961 and founded his own company 20 years ago. "When I started, there were five people in the company," said Mr. Weitzman, who said he stopped by to visit Mr. Miller on Thursday when he heard that he was failing.  "Henry was a visionary in this business and someone I always put on a pedestal," Mr. Weitzman said.

A start in insurance
Born in Dallas in 1914, Mr. Miller grew up in South Dallas and went to Forest Avenue High School (now James Madison High School). The Millers were one of Dallas' pioneer Jewish families, and his great-grandfather is said to have conducted the city's first Jewish religious services. Henry S. Miller Jr.'s own career began not in real estate but in insurance. Mr. Miller started selling insurance on weekends and in the summer while he was a student at Southern Methodist University. He graduated in 1932 with a business degree.   "I never really liked selling insurance, but I did well for a young man," Mr. Miller said in a 1982 interview. "I thought it would be a career for me."   World War II interrupted his business career. Mr. Miller enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor and became a captain in the Army's Quartermaster Corps.  In 1945, he married Juanita Lewis, whom he met at a military redistribution center in Hot Springs, Ark.  “My mother was in charge of the entertainment for the soldiers,” said Jacqueline Miller Stewart, his daughter. “Dad had a magic show. He was a magician and there was a lot of comedy in the act.”  After tours of duty in North Africa and Italy, he returned to Dallas with his new bride and began looking for a job.  Rather than going back to insurance, Mr. Miller joined his father in real estate sales. Since starting the company in 1919, Mr. Miller Sr. had kept the office a one-man operation.
That quickly changed.  "If there was business to be had, I wanted us to do it," Mr. Miller said. "So the growth just evolved."

Big business in Dallas
By the mid-1980s, the Henry S. Miller Co. – recognizable all over the state with its black and white "batwing" signs – had more than 1,300 employees working in 41 offices. The company was the fifth-largest real estate brokerage operation in the nation and handled billions of dollars in transactions each year.  "They may say I was visionary, but I don't know that I agree with that," Mr. Miller said in 2001. "I'm not sure I ever saw Dallas' potential to the extent that it exists today."  In 1984, the Miller family sold the real estate company to Grubb & Ellis Co. of California for $47 million – at that time one of the highest prices ever paid for a regional real estate firm. The family later bought back the residential sales business and re-established the commercial operation, Henry S. Miller Co., which still has extensive operations in North Texas. Mr. Miller was the company's chairman emeritus.  "He had the first major commercial real estate brokerage firm in Dallas that grew large," said broker Wayne Swearingen, who worked for the Miller Co. in the late 1960s and 1970s. "The guy that made it grow was Henry S. Miller Jr.  "We had reunions for years with dozens of people that worked for Mr. Miller," he said.  Virginia Cook was hired by Mr. Miller to set up the company's residential sales division and worked for the Miller family for almost 30 years.  In 1971, Ms. Cook and Mr. Miller set up what would become one of the country's largest independent home sales companies. The Miller family sold Henry S. Miller Residential to Coldwell Banker in early 2001.  When Ms. Cook decided to leave in 2000 and start her own company, Mr. Miller called her and tried to convince her to stay.   "When he decided I had my mind made up, he wished me the best and said I could always count on his support," Ms. Cook recalled. "As always, he kept his word, visiting our offices and touching base periodically to see how things were going.  "Henry S. Miller Jr. was revered internationally in the business not only for his success but for the high professional and personal standards his name will forever represent," Ms. Cook said.  "He launched the careers of many of our industry's finest leaders."  Dallas developer Ken Hughes started working as Mr. Miller's personal assistant in 1968.  "I was 21 and had a college degree and had just gotten out of the military," Mr. Hughes said. "I drove him crazy until they gave me a job.  "I started out officing on the couch with a telephone in Mr. Miller Sr.'s office," he said.  Mr. Hughes worked for the Miller Co. until the late 1970s. "Easily, the number of people in the real estate business that have worked for Mr. Miller is up in the thousands if you count all the residential agents," he said.   Mr. Staubach remembers working part time for Mr. Miller while he was still playing football.  "After we won our first Super Bowl, I got a telephone call from Henry saying, 'Congratulations on the game, and by the way, you've been promoted to vice president.' "

'When he spoke, you listened'
Mr. Miller's influence extended far beyond the business community. He and his wife Juanita were key supporters of the Dallas Symphony starting in the 1950s, and he was credited with saving the symphony from a shutdown in the 1970s.  “A private source of pride for our family has been that our father was a great humanitarian like his father, Henry Sr.,” said Ms. Stewart. “It gave Dad great pleasure to assist countless charities and social services with their real estate needs gratis.”  In 1982, Mr. Miller gave up the day-to-day operation of the family's real estate businesses to lead the $40 million fund-raising effort to build the Meyerson Symphony Center.  The Millers were among the founders of the Dallas Civic Opera, which evolved into the current Dallas Opera, and personally guaranteed its original funding.  Mr. Miller was known for his quiet style and deliberate manner – and his preference for working behind the scenes.  "When he spoke, you listened, because he had something to say," Mr. Staubach said.  Mr. Miller once said that at age 18, "I was already a serious person." Friends and business associates describe him as unflappable. "Even during periods when there was lot of pressure, he never visibly reacted to it," Mr. Hughes said.

Shopping centers
Despite his self-effacing personality, Mr. Miller was occasionally drawn into controversy.  When he bought the historic Highland Park Village shopping center in the 1970s, he brought in new, ritzier tenants, raising the ire of neighborhood residents.  The company owned the landmark shopping center on Preston Road for almost three decades, and Mr. Miller helped transform it into one of the country's most exclusive retail locations.  The Miller family sold the project earlier this year for $170 million – quite a return on its original $5 million investment.  Mr. Miller also developed the Preston Royal shopping center, and his family continues to play a big role in the Dallas shopping center industry.  "Henry used to caution me to never think of anything as being unique," Mr. Hughes said. "But he was the one exception."   Juanita Miller died in 2005, and Mr. Miller is survived by his four children and their spouses, Vance C. Miller and Geraldine "Tincy" Miller; Patsy Miller Donosky; Henry S. Miller III and Angela Ahmadi Miller; and Jacqueline Miller Stewart and Peter B. Stewart. He is also survived by a sister, Carmen Miller Michael, and her husband, Ludwig A. Michael, 15 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. 

Services are pending with Sparkman/Hillcrest Funeral Home in Dallas. 
Donations may be made to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, the Dallas Opera, the AT&T Performing Arts Center or the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Dallas-based Henry S. Miller Brokerage, LLC is Texas’ largest independent full service commercial real estate firm, with six offices in Texas along with offices in Florida and Kansas City. Established in 1914, it is one of the oldest and most respected companies in Texas and has gained a reputation for service and integrity that is unequaled in the industry. Henry S. Miller Brokerage is a member of Realty Resources Network, one of the largest affiliations of commercial real estate firms in the nation.  Visit HSMC online for more information:    www.henrysmiller.com