Alan Miller, a longtime Denver decorator who worked on homes from here to the Middle East, died Feb. 7. He was 83.
Services are planned for 2 p.m. March 7 at Rockland Community Church in Golden.
Miller, a native of Denver, started out as a race-car driver “and was heading for the Indianapolis 500,” his daughter, Candice Miller of Longmont, said.
But after witnessing the death of a driver he was following in a race, he decided “this was no sport for a guy with a family.”
He never lost his interest in cars, but he began a career in interior design and worked at Howard Lorton Galleries for 30 years. Eventually he became vice president.
“He was a multifaceted person, creative, exacting and precise,” said Ray Sylvester of Denver, who was a colleague at Howard Lorton. He was good with clients, Sylvester said, “because he listened to them.”
Norma Hazen of Wheat Ridge, a client for 40 years, said Miller oversaw every change in her home, from patio fireplace to new rooms. “My husband (Wayne Hazen) says we have had the longest remodel job in history.”
Miller and Bill Cook, president of Howard Lorton, designed the first house in East Vail, in the early 1960s. “He was my mentor and he loved being a teacher,” said Cook, who joined the firm, founded by his grandfather, Howard Lorton, at age 23.
Miller’s interest in cars never waned. With a friend, he rebuilt an MG, a Triumph and a Model A coupe, and “souped up a Volkswagen,” his daughter said.
Alan Duane Miller was born in Denver on May 22, 1924, graduated from Lakewood High School, attended Colorado College in Colorado Springs for a short time and then joined the Navy.
While in the service, on Christmas Eve 1946, he married a girl he’d met in high school, Darlene Tengwald. She’d had her eye on him and made sure he noticed her. As he stood on a ladder putting up prom decorations, she cut his shoe laces.
Miller began racing stock cars at a track north of Denver in the summer while he was in college, but gave that up, graduated from the University of Denver and began his career.
Among projects he was involved in were the restoration of the Molly Brown House on Capitol Hill and the renovation of the historic Palace Arms restaurant in the Brown Palace Hotel. He also designed several pieces of furniture. “He had a brilliant mechanical and visual mind,” Candice Miller said.
Alan Miller restored Victorian homes in Vail and Telluride and designed private homes in Cherry Hills Village, Hawaii and Jordan.
He was a founding member of Historic Denver and often wrote for Architectural Digest.
The Millers traveled extensively, and wherever they went Miller took pictures of Victorian homes, amassing a huge slide collection, his daughter said.
Darlene Miller preceded her husband in death.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by his son, Gregg Miller of Arvada, and two grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
