Larry H. Miller

Lawrence Horne Miller was born Lawrence Horne West to Mary Lorille Horne and Howard Hanley West on April 26, 1944.  Miller’s parents divorced in 1946, and Mary married Frank Soren Miller in 1948.  Miller adopted Lawrence in 1949. 

Always driven, but never focused, Larry was an avid sportsman and a rather poor student.  After graduating from West High School, he began to work in construction for an uncle.  In 1964 he began working for American Auto Parts.  His two main interests were softball and drag racing.  He raced cars and was a pitcher for the Salt Lake City Metro League and the Denver Metro League.

In 1966, he became a parts manager and later manager of the parts and service departments for a Utah auto dealer. In 1970, he moved to Denver to play softball and work as a parts manager for two Denver Toyota dealerships. In 1978, he was promoted to operations manager over five Toyota stores.  (Wikipedia)

Miller married his high school sweetheart, Karen Gail Saxton, on March 25, 1965.  Together, they raised five children.  Miller was mercurial and often absent from the household.  Karen was a calming influence on him.  She stated after his death that a very great blessing in their lives was that they never wanted a divorce simultaneously.

Miller began to acquire auto dealerships.  By 2007,  he had created the Larry H. Miller Automotive Group.   Selling Power listed him as the tenth largest U.S. automotive dealer, with forty-two dealerships and sales of $2,327,000,000.  He also started a local television station, eventually called KJAZZ-TV  in Salt Lake City. 

Miller also owned the Larry H. Miller Megaplex, Prestige Financial, Miller Motorsports Park (opened in 2006), Fanzz (a chain of sports clothing & memorabilia outlets), and the successful Jordan Commons cinema/ restaurant complexes along the Wasatch Front. There are five Megaplex Theaters located in shopping centers along the Wasatch Front; the Gateway Mall in downtown Salt Lake City, at the aforementioned Jordan Commons in Sandy, at The District in South Jordan, at The Junction in Ogden, and at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. Together the theaters total 70 screens. In late 2009 another theatre location in Centerville, Utah was announced. In 2010 the Megaplex at Thanksgiving Point started showing large format movies on the Mammoth Screen. 

Miller became a co-owner of the Utah Jazz when he purchased a 50% interest in the team on April 11, 1985 for $9.5 million. On June 16, 1986, he purchased the remaining 50% from Sam Battistone for $17.3 million.

Miller built the EnergySolutions Arena (formerly the Delta Center) in downtown Salt Lake City to house the Jazz NBA team.

Miller was an unpaid consultant in the project to construct Spring Mobile Ballpark, now the home of the Los Angeles Angels’ AAA affiliate Salt Lake Bees. He purchased the team in 2005, changing the name from the Salt Lake Stingers to the Bees.

He also owned the Salt Lake Golden Eagles ice hockey team, which he purchased in September 1989.

Larry Miller was also a philanthropist.  

Miller contributed to a variety of causes and organizations, including a $21 million dollar training center for law enforcement and corrections officers, as well as a significant investment towards a campus for Salt Lake Community College, which are both named in his honor.

In November 1995, he formed Larry H. Miller Charities, whose mission statement is, “We give back to our communities by focusing our united service and corporate giving on youth and children with an emphasis on health and education.” Since its inception, the foundation has raised more than $1 million, distributing those funds to charitable organizations in the communities where the Larry H. Miller Group does business.

His public service was recognized by numerous awards, including the Utah Minuteman Award from the Utah National Guard in 1990, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Utah in 1991, and the Tourist Achievement Award from the Salt Lake Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1992.

Larry Miller passed away on February 20, 2009, of complcations of diabetes and  calciphylaxis at the age of 64.

*In 2010, after Miller’s passing, MormonTimes.com released a series of articles about Larry Miller as a companion to his book, Driven: An Autobiography.  To see the articles, click here.

*Larry Miller became inactive in the Mormon Church as a youth and then went through a period of “reconversion.”  Read about it here.