If you want to see Peter Miller smile, which he does with great ease, watch as one of his daughters enters a room.

Miller, 48, is a real estate attorney based in Leland who works with county officials on building affordable housing around the county. He shares his faith and beliefs as a Christian with men of all denominations each Saturday morning.

Peter Miller

Talking with Miller in his second-story office above Main Street, one of the few pauses in the conversation came when his daughter Katherine, who will be a senior at St. Mary School this fall, arrived with a friend. It was the last day of school and Katherine was looking for lunch money.

Papa Miller reached into a drawer on his desk and came up with a couple of dollars. He then handed her a small cardboard box filled with quarters. “I left my wallet at home,” he explained.

Miller and his family have been part of many summers in the county. “Both sets of my grandparents had cottages here. My mom’s parents built a fishing cabin on Lake Leelanau in 1929. My dad’s folks built a cottage here in Leland sometime in the 1940s. Between the two families we always had a place to stay in Leelanau during the summer,” he said.

Miller was born and raised in Indianapolis. After high school graduation in 1978, he attended Wabash College near Crawfordsville, Ind. He continued his schooling at Indiana University’s law school at the Indianapolis campus, and also worked as a messenger at the law firm McHale, Cook and Walsh. After earning his law degree, he joined the firm.

During his college years and early in his career, Miller and his wife Lisa, and later on daughters Katherine and Christy, who will be a sophomore at St. Mary this fall, did not visit Leelanau County as often as they would have liked. “We would come up for week and some years we didn’t get here at all, what with being busy at work,” he said.

Later on, as he become more established, Miller and family would visit during the “off-season,” either in June or September. “To avoid the crowds,” he said. He and Lisa always liked what they saw when they came up to Leland and started making plans to relocate here.

“My brother Gene, everyone calls him Geno, has lived here for 30 years. He said we should come up here in March, during the ‘muddy’ season, before we made the big move,” Miller said. They had always visited when the weather was good, and spent a few snowy holidays in Leland, but had not been here during the gray and brown times.

“We came up here and spent a good part of March one year. Yes it was muddy and brown, but we still loved it,” Miller said.

Man of faith

Miller and company moved to Leland in 2002, and the daughters were enrolled at St. Mary School. The move might seem different for a family that is an integral part of the Leland Methodist Church, but not to the Millers.

“St. Mary’s has been great. We have nothing against the public schools here, they all do a great job, but we wanted our girls to attend a school that included a close relationship with God as part of their education,” he said.

Being an active member at Leland United Methodist Church, Miller noticed that while there were always women around for services and different church events, men were usually scarce. “I perceived a lot of guys were not real comfortable in church, that they went out of a sense of duty,” he said.

He had been thinking about a way to get men together to talk about their faith and how it relates to their lives. He was talking about starting up a men’s Bible study group with a good friend, Perry Pentiuk. “Perry, my buddy, is a real go-getter. He said ‘Let’s just start one,’” Miller said. So they did.

The group meets each Saturday morning from 8-9 a.m. at his office The first meeting was 31/2 years ago. “We had seven guys at the first meeting. Now, we have groups anywhere from a dozen to 18. If we get more than 18 guys in here it gets really crowded,” he said.

The get-together is open to men of all denominations. They meet on Saturday mornings because Miller wanted to avoid another night meeting. “We all go to so many night time events, meetings, ball games, plays, it just made sense to try in on a Saturday morning and see what happens,” he said.

Miller sends out an e-mail to group members each week showing which Bible verse they will be discussing and sometimes includes questions about how the verse applies to their lives. “Part of the attraction for me is it’s really fun. The guys all have a good sense of humor. We’ll read a verse then say, ‘what do you think?’” he said. The discussions that ensue almost always lead to real life talk.

“It’s a forum where you look to God for help with issues in your life. To me, that is what it’s all about. It’s a very big part of my life,” he said.

A developer who supports affordable housing

It is also a part of his faith that drives Miller to work with the county housing coordinator Ronald W. Crummel on providing affordable housing for low-income families. “One of the things I noticed when we moved here was the lack of a place for (lower income) working families to live in Leelanau County. It’s not any secret, given the high property values around here, that affordable housing for low-income families is scarce,” he said.

He has worked with Crummel, other county officials and local citizen-led efforts, like Leelanau REACH, to develop affordable housing opportunities. Miller said he would like to see more privately led efforts, like the New Neighborhood development in the Village of Empire. But, he also applauds county efforts that he has helped out, like the Provemont Pines development Lake Leelanau. The county has secured the property and received approval from the Leland Township Planning Commission to proceed with building two townhouses, with each townhouse holding two single-family residences. The townhouses are located on S. St. Joseph Street in Lake Leelanau, and the county is looking at building two more townhouses across the street..

Miller tried to put together a small three or four single-family residence development on a 3.7-acre parcel in the Ski View Farms subdivision in Centerville Township on his own. He said he ran into opposition from neighbors, especially when they heard the words “low income” and “affordable housing.”

“I think the neighbors disliked it because they were unsure of what I was trying to do,” he said. Miller met with as many neighbors as possible and after he explained what he wanted to do, he said most turned to supporters. He has not given up on trying to do something with the lot, and is optimistic about the future of affordable housing opportunities here in Leelanau.

“The county is looking at doing something in the Northport area. Everyone knows we need to do something so that young families with children can afford to live here. We’ll be making a big mistake as a county if we don’t accommodate everyone,” Miller said.

Favorite food, book and saying:

Favorite food: "Roast leg of lamb, slow roasted. We only have it on special occasions."

Favorite book: "The Bible of course." His favorite edition is the Life Application NIV (New International Version) Bible. "It has footnotes that help explain passages in the Bible. It has more plain language than the King James version."

Favorite saying: "Yesterday is ashes, tomorrow wood, only today dows the fire burn bright.." Miller said. It's a native American saying he heard in high school.