How an
Instagram-Perfect Life in the Hamptons Ended in Tragedy
Candice and
Brandon Miller showed the public a world of glittering parties and vacations.
The money to sustain it did not exist.
Katherine
Rosman
By Katherine
Rosman
Aug. 8, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/nyregion/brandon-miller-suicide-debt.html?searchResultPosition=1
In the
modern Gilded Age of New York, where Instagram is awash in unrestrained
displays of wealth, Brandon and Candice Miller were royalty.
At their
10th wedding anniversary “Midsummer Night’s Dream” party, they celebrated with
a few dozen friends in the backyard of their 5,500-square-foot vacation home in
the Hamptons.
Beautiful
women in gowns watched with their handsome husbands as the couple renewed their
vows near a swimming pool strewn with peonies and rose petals beneath a canopy
of lights.
It was a
grand public display of their perfect life and marriage. Ms. Miller told a
lifestyle blogger who wrote about the party that her husband’s speech “made me
cry by the end with his authentic, raw emotion and romantic words.”
It all
culminated in the kind of envy-inducing images anticipated by the roughly
80,000 followers of “Mama and Tata,” Ms. Miller’s popular Instagram feed, which
featured a near-constant stream of photographs and videos of her glittering
life.
The
Midsummer Night party was in 2019. Five years later, the glamorous image that
Ms. Miller cultivated and promoted has disappeared, replaced with heartbreak,
anger and a mountain of once-secret debt.
Her husband
is gone. The home they so ostentatiously lived in, saddled by several
mortgages, is not truly their own. Lawsuits from creditors, business
bankruptcies, botched investments and even a repossessed boat — the “Miller
Time” — indicate that the wealth needed to maintain their lifestyle had
evaporated, if it ever truly existed.
Mr. Miller,
43, died on July 3 at a Southampton hospital. A suicide note indicated he had
killed himself while his wife and children were on vacation on Italy’s Amalfi
Coast, according to a Suffolk County law enforcement official. He said Mr.
Miller wrote that a business deal he had hoped would ease the family’s
financial strain had collapsed.
His family
was stunned. When Ms. Miller was contacted for comment, a family spokesman said
she and the children were overwhelmed by grief. “Candice is devastated by the
loss of her soul mate, and her two young daughters’ lives are forever impacted
by the loss of their beloved daddy,” he said.
The Millers’
downfall has become the focus of obsessive talk in the Hamptons and among
internet sleuths who have scoured Ms. Miller’s social media presence for clues
to what went wrong.
This account
of the family’s rise and fall is drawn from property records, legal filings and
interviews with those who knew and worked with Mr. Miller. Because of the
sensitivity of the subject, few agreed to be cited by name.
That Mr.
Miller’s death occurred in the Hamptons during the height of the social season
almost certainly has added to the intrigue, said Neil J. Young, a historian who
is writing a book about the Hamptons. Here, the only thing as fascinating as
opulent wealth is its sudden disintegration.
“This place
is predicated, for a certain set, on showing off,” Dr. Young said. “It’s the
homes one has, the things one does out here — from the restaurants to the
workouts to the parties. But it’s a place where one can get overextended really
quickly, where a house of cards can suddenly collapse.”
A chasm
separated the Millers’ shimmering public lives and painful private reality. But
their fall is also a source of very real grief — a story about trying to have
it all, and what happens when you cannot.
“What people
aren’t discussing in all of this is the loss of my little brother, someone I
have loved unconditionally,” Mr. Miller’s sister, Maurley Miller, said in a
statement after being contacted by The New York Times. “I have a hole in my
heart that will never be filled. I am completely devastated.”
Perhaps no
place in America is as perfectly Instagram-ready as the Hamptons, where
striking natural beauty and extravagant wealth are juxtaposed in abundance.
Lifestyle and fashion influencers spend their summers at the eastern end of
Long Island, documenting their sumptuous lives.
Ms. Miller,
42, added to that canon when she and her sister, Jenna Crespi, started the
“Mama and Tata” website and Instagram account in 2016 to provide fashion,
shopping and decorating tips for wealthy women.
The account
highlighted people in Ms. Miller’s orbit, like Ivanka Trump and Ms. Miller’s
cousin-by-marriage, Arielle Charnas, an Instagram personality who influenced
her influencer aspirations. The fitness impresario Tracy Anderson and the
fashion designer Rachel Zoe made regular appearances.
But it
mostly showcased Ms. Miller’s personal life and tastes. “Mama and Tata” became
an alter ego and self-promotional marketing machine. Ms. Miller and some
friends even started a fashion label that she celebrated with a launch party at
the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. Her followers got regular glimpses of her
active social life against the backdrop of grand homes in Manhattan and
Southampton, European resorts, private planes, classic sports cars and
speedboats.
She was
known for her vintage designer gowns and for private fitness sessions (about
$250 per hour on top of $900 monthly studio membership fees) that she filmed
and shared online.
The Miller
children’s birthdays were also an opportunity for Ms. Miller to entertain on a
grand scale — for friends and for online fans. A Coachella-themed party for one
daughter spawned a torrent of Instagram posts tagging the vendors Ms. Miller
hired: a party planner, a florist and a DJ. Helping to keep it all afloat were
nannies, housekeepers, drivers, boat captains and personal chefs.
But while
“Mama and Tata” reveled in luxury, it spent no time delving into how the
splendor was being paid for.
Though Ms.
Miller poured time into her Instagram feed, it did not generate much revenue.
Instead, “Mama and Tata” enhanced her profile in other ways.
In a 2019
article for an online magazine about the Millers’ Manhattan home — “our
townhouse in the sky,” she called it — she posed for photographs with her two
young daughters. The living room was decorated in all white, down to the
white-spined books on the shelves. “It is so beautiful to sit in, as long as
you aren’t wearing anything that bleeds, and exclusively drinking water,” she
said.
Mr. Miller,
on the other hand, eschewed social media — he primarily used a flip phone.
Friends described him as a movie buff, basketball fan and car aficionado.
But when it
came to his wife’s devotion to sharing their life online, she said he was all
in. “I have the most supportive husband who encourages me to do whatever I
love,” she told a lifestyle blog.
Off camera,
they maintained traditional separations of duties, said a person familiar with
their family dynamics. Ms. Miller oversaw the daily care of the children, and
Mr. Miller focused on his business, which they rarely discussed.
She had
visited his office only once, and she met his business partner just three times
— including, most recently, beside her husband’s grave.
Brandon
Miller developed commercial and residential projects in TriBeCa, Harlem and the
Meatpacking District. He appeared to be a successful businessman in a city
filled with them.
Yet by last
fall, he was under so much pressure that when he attended a business meeting in
a Midtown high rise, according to three people familiar with what happened, Mr.
Miller sat at a conference table and began to weep.
He was in a
financial free-fall that confidants are now struggling to piece together.
Mr. Miller
began working in real estate a few years after graduating from Brown
University, joining his father’s firm. Early in his marriage, the company
developed a residential building in TriBeCa, and Mr. Miller acquired Unit 3 —
the penthouse — for his family.
He and his
father also bought two connecting lots in the Hamptons, one on the water and
one behind it. They built homes on both, and sold one on the open market. Mr.
Miller kept the other — a lavish home with expansive grounds that easily
accommodated sit-down dinners for 60 friends.
The homes
acquired from his father’s firm allowed the Millers to live as if they were
mega-millionaires.
But Mr.
Miller’s primary focus was commercial development. In a typical project, he
raised money from investors to secure a long-term lease on a parcel of land
before commissioning architects to plan a building. Once permits were in place,
he sold the lease, the building plan and its permits to another developer for a
profit, or took on more debt to cover construction costs.
Even when
such projects go smoothly, the work can require developers to leverage many
assets to secure loans that will carry them through the process.
“You’re
dealing with people who can lose everything,” said Jay Neveloff, a real estate
lawyer in New York.
Mr. Miller’s
father, Michael Miller, managed that risk for many years, but his assets were
highly leveraged when he died unexpectedly in 2016. His company and survivors
were hit with lawsuits.
After his
father’s death, Mr. Miller took over the company, alongside his father’s former
partner. But soon, the pandemic made a challenging business even more
difficult, as the city’s real estate market plunged. And while the residential
market rebounded, the demand for office space did not return to prepandemic
levels.
Mr. Miller
found himself in a financial crunch. In 2021, near the bottom of the pandemic
market, he sold the family’s TriBeCa home for just over $9 million, according
to city records. The family set their sights on living uptown, in the type of
co-op building that Mr. Miller had grown up in. But buying on the Upper East
Side would have required significant cash.
Instead,
they rented a 4,382-square-foot, five-bedroom apartment on the corner of Park
Avenue and East 71st Street, according to court records — keeping up
appearances for $47,000 per month. They decorated with rented furniture for
which they paid $180,000 for one year, according to a lawsuit filed this
spring, and $12,000 per month after the first year.
If this was
downsizing, it wasn’t enough.
Mr. Miller
stopped paying some of the family’s bills, including, according to a lawsuit,
the maintenance and docking fees for their Van Dutch speedboat — a frequent
backdrop for late-night parties shared on Instagram. Such models generally sell
for more than $1 million.
And he
leveraged the family’s prize asset, the Hamptons home, piling one mortgage atop
another. He took out a $6.1 million loan from a conventional bank. Then,
records show, he arranged another $2 million mortgage from a company that
advertised cash loans that close in less than 24 hours.
The Millers
continued to entertain in high style. In August 2022, they hosted a “Love Boat”
party at Duryea’s, a beachfront restaurant in Montauk. Ms. Miller posed for
photos with friends in a sleek white dress.
But Mr.
Miller’s desperation was growing. A few weeks later, he borrowed yet more money
against the house: a $2 million mortgage from a lender in Naples, Fla.,
facilitated by a family friend, Ryan Nivakoff, who contributed cash to the
loan, according to public records and three people familiar with the Millers’
finances. Mr. Nivakoff declined to comment.
None of this
was apparent to Ms. Miller’s online audience. In a video posted by Hamptons
Magazine last July, Ms. Miller, in a strapless summer dress, answered questions
about her preferred hot spots. Chicest shopping? “Chanel, East Hampton,” Ms.
Miller answered.
By the fall
of 2023, Mr. Miller could no longer hide the strain. His friends, aware of both
his family’s expensive lifestyle and the sluggish real estate market, assumed
he was struggling with debt.
Three of
them arranged an intervention of sorts, according to three people familiar with
the meeting.
The day
before the meeting, the friends spoke by phone to discuss their approach. As
they did, one of them searched the internet for a property that Mr. Miller was
ostensibly developing in Brooklyn. The friend had invested $1 million in the
project and had encouraged several colleagues to invest an additional $500,000
in all.
What he
found online was alarming: The property had been purchased more than a month
earlier by a developer with no connection to Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller
arrived at the meeting looking glum, according to three people familiar with
what happened. He had just visited his father’s grave on the seventh
anniversary of his death — an event from which those close to Brandon say he
never fully recovered.
The friend
who had given him money for the Brooklyn project told Mr. Miller that he felt
misled and angry.
Mr. Miller
broke down in tears. He insisted he had not done anything wrong but lamented
that he had let his friend down.
The friend
became teary-eyed and walked out. After a 15-year friendship, he and Mr. Miller
never spoke again.
Reached for
comment, the friend said their fractured relationship and Mr. Miller’s death
have devastated him, and he otherwise asked for privacy. He has told others
that he believed Mr. Miller had sincerely intended to use his money as a
business investment before the deal went awry. Then, he believed, Mr. Miller
let his financial burdens cloud his judgment.
Mr. Miller’s
business troubles did not abate. He took over a land lease near the High Line
in Manhattan that would require annual payments of more than $2 million,
according to a person familiar with the transaction. He immediately borrowed
$1.5 million against it, according to public filings and people familiar with
the transaction.
Within
months, Mr. Miller fell behind in making the lease payments, Benny Barmapov,
the landowner, said in an interview.
The pressure
intensified when a private equity firm that had lent Mr. Miller’s company $36
million to help finance a development tried to collect on the overdue
repayment.
At home,
creditors were demanding money too. The marina that serviced the Millers’ boat
sued for $55,000. The furniture rental company claimed in a lawsuit that he
owed $100,000 in fees and had refused to return $64,000 in borrowed furniture.
Although his
friends could sense something was wrong, Ms. Miller has said she was unaware of
the family’s financial crisis, according to two people familiar with her
thinking.
In January
she was quoted in The Times, extolling the benefits of an $800 facial over
filler injections and plastic surgery. “This makes you feel like your face
doesn’t need that stuff,” Ms. Miller said, “if you’re truly committing to going
every week or every other week.”
A canceled
vacation
Candice and
Brandon Miller at a summertime party in East Hampton sponsored by Hamptons
Magazine.Credit...Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images For Hamptons Magazine
Earlier this
year, the Millers were invited to spend a few days in the Bahamas at the home
of Mr. Nivakoff, the friend who had helped underwrite one of Mr. Miller’s
mortgages. But as the trip approached, Mr. Nivakoff wanted Mr. Miller to tell
his wife about the debt or forget about the trip, according to two people with
knowledge of the discussion.
Mr. Miller
canceled the trip, but Mr. Nivakoff did not relent.
In May, he
called Ms. Miller directly, according to two people she told, and informed her
that her husband owed him money. Her family, Mr. Nivakoff told her, was broke.
Her house was carrying several mortgages, including one he had invested in.
Ms. Miller
confronted her husband and asked to see their financial documents. He arranged
a call with a lawyer to reassure her and eventually persuaded her that
everything was under control.
Even then,
their financial straits were growing more perilous. In early June, he borrowed
$208,000 against the house from a company offering short-term loans. He never
paid it back, according to the lender.
Later that
month, the family had plans to travel to Europe, but Mr. Miller told his wife
he had to stay home to close a deal that would help their financial situation,
according to three people familiar with the discussion. He encouraged her and
the children to go without him — after all, he told her, the trip was already
paid for.
Ms. Miller
took their daughters abroad and posted photographs from Spain and Italy. Only
later did they learn the trip had not been paid for; after her credit card was
declined, her travel agent had to guarantee the hotel bill would be paid.
On June 28,
Mr. Miller texted his wife to tell her the deal intended to ease their money
crisis had closed, according to two people familiar with the situation.
But he also
reached out to at least one friend that week for a loan that should have been
pocket change for someone like him: $1,000, according to two people aware of
the request. On June 29, he attended a polo match and barbecue in the Hamptons.
On June 30,
the police were notified that a carbon monoxide alarm had gone off at the
Millers’ home. Emergency medical workers found Mr. Miller unconscious in a
white Porsche Carrera that he had rigged to poison himself, a Suffolk County
law enforcement official said. Rescue workers found a photo of him, his wife
and their children in the car.
Mr. Miller
was rushed to a hospital and placed on life support.
In an email
left for his wife, Mr. Miller admitted he had lied. The business deal he hoped
would save them had fallen apart, he said.
He expressed
his love for his wife and children. He wrote that he believed he was doing what
was best for them — the note mentioned two life insurance policies totaling
about $15 million. He wrote that he had struggled against dark feelings for
years.
In a
graveside ceremony attended by family and a small circle of friends, he was
laid to rest next to his father.
The
dismantling of their dream life began almost immediately. A mortgage lender
sued Ms. Miller for $800,000 in missed payments and interest. The Miller Time
was repossessed. And the “Mama and Tata” Instagram account was pulled offline.
If you are
having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and
Crisis Lifeline in the United States, or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources
for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United
States.
Lauren
Hirsch contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy and Kitty Bennett contributed
research.
Katherine
Rosman covers newsmakers, power players and individuals making an imprint on
New York City. More about Katherine Rosman
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