Lee Miglin

Lee Albert Miglin (July 12, 1924 – May 4, 1997) was an American businessman. After starting his career as a door-to-door salesman and then broker, Miglin became a successful real estate developer. He was an early developer of business parks. His firm, at one point, proposed the construction of the Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle, which was planned to be the tallest building in the world. Miglin was murdered in his home in May 1997 as part of a murder spree by Andrew Cunanan.

Life and career Miglin was born in Westville, Illinois and was one of seven children born to a Roman Catholic family of Lithuanian descent. His father was a Czech immigrant who worked as a Central Illinois coal miner and also owned a tavern, ice cream parlor, and soda distributorship.

Miglin trained as an air cadet during World War II, before attending the University of Illinois. He worked at Rubloff & Co. for 25 years. Among the projects developed by the firm were Madison Plaza (200 West Madison), and Oakbrook Terrace Tower (the tallest building in Illinois outside of Chicago). In the late-1980s, they built a Helmut Jahn-designed building in Chicago that housed the headquarters of Chocolat Suchard's United States division. Miglin and Bitter introduced an American variant of the Bitter SC to the United States market. The cars were sold through Buick dealerships. However, few Buick dealerships agreed to sport Bitter signage, which resulted in low sales that doomed the venture.

In 1988, Miglin-Beitler Developments unveiled plans to construct a 125-floor skyscraper in Chicago to be called the Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle. This would have been the tallest building in the world at the time of its planned completion. However, the building was never built, with plans faltering during a 1990 downturn of Chicago's downtown office market. Miglin-Beitler had held hopes of resurrecting the project, but these hopes would be dashed by Miglin's murder. on the Home Shopping Network.

Miglin was an automobile collector, collecting vintage cars. Miglin was a licensed pilot, and owned more than one private aircraft, as well as a helicopter.

Miglin contributed more than $100,000 to Richard M. Daley's successful campaign in the 1989 Chicago mayoral election. Cunanan was already wanted in Minneapolis for murdering his friend Jeffrey Trail and his own ex-lover David Madson a few days earlier. Some of the properties developed by Miglin are today managed by Miglin Properties, LLC.

In popular culture The second season of the anthology television series American Crime Story (titled The Assassination of Gianni Versace), recounted the Cunanan spree. It included appearances by Miglin, portrayed by Mike Farrell. This portrayal was based on Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History by Maureen Orth, who speculated that Miglin may have been a closeted bisexual man in a secret relationship with Cunanan. The Miglin family has refuted this story, and has insisted that there was no relationship of any kind between Miglin and Cunanan. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation had investigated whether Cunanan might have known Miglin or a relative of Miglin's prior to the crime, they were unable to establish any such link between Miglin and Cunanan.