For Pete Mirabella, the glass wasn’t only half full – it was full.
When he was told he had three to five years to live, he told his family that meant eight – because three and five add up to eight.
“He was ridiculously optimistic,” said his son, Mike Mirabella of Golden.
In fact, lung cancer took him in three months. He died June 3 in Tucson. A service is planned at 11 a.m. July 3 at St. Thom as More Catholic Church in Englewood.
Born in Sicily, Mirabella came to the United States with his parents, Mike and Rosalie Mirabella, when he was 2. By the time he was 6 or 7, he was selling Coca-Cola at the New York World’s Fair.
That taste of business enterprise never waned.
He owned two bars in Bergen Park, owned two Christmas stores with his wife, Patricia, was a salesman for Robinson Brick and Tile, and bought land in various parts of the city and the mountains for investment.
“He definitely had a real-estate gift,” said his daughter Susan Hagar of Centennial. “And he had the drive and the talent.”
He knew the land prices would go up, whether it was in Wheat Ridge, Breckenridge or Bergen Park, even though his family’s reaction often was “What in the world?” said Hagar.
Pete Mirabella was born July 31, 1933, and came to New York in 1935. His grandfather had a masonry business and didn’t speak English well. By the time Pete Mirabella was in the first or second grade, he was helping his grandfather negotiate contracts because he had learned English in school. The whole family moved to Chicago and then to Denver in 1957.
While in Chicago, Pete Mirabella married Patricia Schucart.
Pete Mirabella began selling brick for Robinson Brick and Tile and later the Denver Brick Co.
In 1968, he and Pete Tibaldo bought the Bergen Park Inn and reopened it as Pietro’s. Later, Mirabella bought the Double R Bar, just down the street. It is now the Whippletree.
Someone decided that Mirabella looked like Broncos defensive lineman Lyle Alzado. The Broncos star came to Mirabella’s bar in Bergen Park and forever after that the two claimed they were relatives but teased each other about who was uglier.
It was a story Mirabella loved to tell, and he had hundreds of stories.
The wholesale Christmas shop was at the Denver Merchandise Mart, and Christmas stores were in Cherry Creek North and in Breckenridge.
Even after retiring, Mirabella was laying tile and fixing things around his home in Tucson or those of his neighbors.
“He wasn’t the leisure kind of guy,” said Hagar.
In addition to his wife, son and daughter, Mirabella is survived by daughters Nancy Mirabella of San Jose, Calif., and Jamie Mirabella of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and four grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
