The family at the helm of Cannons Marina keep it strong after 68 years

On a typically toasty late July afternoon on Longboat Key, David Miller points through a window to a dock behind Cannons Marina and says, with a slight pang of excitement, “Hey, we have a rental boat going out.”

Miller, co-owner of Cannons, sits in a slatted teak chair in the marina’s store, dressed in a floral print shirt and white shorts, a Rolex gleaming on his wrist, and his tousled white hair combed forward. Beside him is his business partner and former wife, Lucile Capo-Miller. 

A rental boat heading out would seem like a quotidian event in the day of a prosperous marina owner whose main product line is prestigious Grady-White boats, several of which are situated on the marina grounds, and a few of which are priced over a million dollars.

But the rental moment has historical significance for Miller, 74. As a kid in the late 1950s and ’60s, he was in charge of rentals for Cannons Marina, which his father, Paul Miller, owned. The launching dock back then was in the same place as it is now.

Cannons Marina has become an institution on Longboat Key — and so have Miller and Capo-Miller. Miller is known as a tough but fair businessman who has always emphasized top-notch service, a principle shared by Capo-Miller. That commitment holds true for everything from a seven-figure boat sale to customer relationships. “We know that sells the second boat and the third boat,” Capo-Miller says.

And it’s also true for a fisherman needing an oil change. “The service is not cheap, but it’s done right,” says Scott Moore, Miller’s longtime friend who runs a fishing charter business. “It’s the cleanest boat marina you’ll ever see. Have you ever been in a marina bathroom that wasn’t nasty? Cannons’ is like the one in my house.”

Cannons Marina maintains Clean Boatyard and Clean Marina designations, both awarded by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to facilities that adhere to the highest environmental standards. “We get inspected by the [FDEP] every few years,” Capo-Miller says. “For example, we pay for a waste management company that deals with our kind of waste. We don’t just put it in the dumpster.”

Miller is widely admired for his environmental stewardship. In the late ’90s, he was part of a group that prevented residential development on Sisters Key, which is north of Cannons Marina across Millar Bay. “He cares about the seas and the oceans,” Moore says. “And he’s shown it by giving lots and lots of money to environmental groups and causes.”

An island lifer

Miller claims to have lived on Longboat Key longer than anyone else. “Not the oldest, but the longest living,” he says. 

“That’s very possible,” says Moore, 72, who also grew up in the area. “I don’t know of anyone else.”

For the record, Miller has lived on this 10-mile strip of an island from 1955 to present. Sixty-nine years. Capo-Miller came on board in the late ’90s. She left a good job as a nurse anesthetist, “a very difficult” decision. “We divorced, but we’re best friends,” Capo-Miller says. That’s all they care to discuss about their personal relationship. Their business partnership appears quite harmonious. 

Photo by Lori Sax

Miller is not a loquacious man. In fact, you might even call him curmudgeonly. Capo-Miller tends to fill in the blanks after Miller answers a question with a staccato sentence or two. She consistently pushes attention, praise and credit to her partner.

They’re both hard workers. Capo-Miller, who declined to reveal her age, puts in six full days a week and takes off Sunday, her gardening day. Miller is at the marina five or six days a week and feels free to come in late and leave early some of the time. He lives on the north end of Longboat with his adorable goldendoodle Charlie — who trotted in, freshly groomed, during our interview — and likes to go out fishing on his fully loaded, 28-foot Grady White with twin 300-horsepower engines. Capo-Miller lives in Sarasota, near downtown, and regularly attends the city’s cultural events. “I love the symphony,” she says. 

But she’s no society lady. Capo-Miller grew up in nearby Cortez as part of a multigenerational fishing family. She and Miller have been on angling sojourns around the world. One time, in the waters off Costa Rica, Capo-Miller caught a 300-pound marlin. (She’s quick to point out that the fish never left the water; no stuffed trophies for her, just photos.)

A tight ship 

In the late 1940s, Ernie Cannon opened a fishing camp and called it Cannons Marina. According to lore, Longboat Key had more wild hogs and rattlesnakes than people. Meanwhile, Paul Miller lived in Michigan and worked as an engineer running dredging crews in the Great Lakes. His wife, Dorothy, managed the household and cared for their two children — Sally and David, who was 13 years younger.

Weary of the long hours and travel that kept him away from his family, Paul Miller sought a life reset, and in 1955 came down to the Sarasota area to scout business opportunities. As David Miller remembers it, his father was driving down Longboat Key’s main (dirt) road when he happened upon Cannons Marina toward the north end of the island. Paul Miller liked the unspoiled nature of the one-acre property and cut a deal with Cannon to buy it. 

David Miller won’t divulge how much his father paid, but says, “It was less than $100,000. How ’bout that?”

Photo by Lori Sax

Paul Miller moved his family down soon after. The property he bought also included a couple of cottages across the street, and the Millers moved into one of them. Sally moved away soon after. Five-year-old David had the run of the family’s new digs — but no one to run with. “I was the only kid,” Miller muses. “There was nobody around.”

Young David started out counting bait at Cannons and graduated to renting boats. He did a lot of fishing in his wooden skiff with a five-horsepower motor. And he spent most of his time with his father, who occasionally shut down the marina midday to go out angling with his son.

For the first couple of years, David only attended school sporadically. “There was no bridge on the north end of Longboat Key,” he says. “And the bus wouldn’t come over the [Manatee/Sarasota] county line, which was in the middle of the island. So, I couldn’t get where I needed to be.”

His parents did their best to drive him to school in Sarasota as many days as they could, but it was a long trek each way and they had work to do. By David’s third-grade year, however, a bridge connecting the Key to Bradenton Beach was completed, and he was able to take the bus to Anna Maria Elementary.

Photo by Lori Sax

In 1968, Miller graduated from The Prew Academy, a small private school in Sarasota. He tried his hand at college, attending three schools: Manatee Community College, Georgia Southern in Statesboro, and Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville. He largely skipped the party-time revelry that most college kids seek. “More often than not, I’d come home on weekends to help my dad out,” he says.

Nothing stuck in the world of academia, and Miller eventually joined the family business. He says he never considered doing anything else. By the late 1970s, Miller wanted more, and he approached his father about buying him out — and not timidly. “Well, I was increasing his wealth but not mine,” he says. “Something had to change, and either he made a change, or I left. That was the ultimatum.” 

Paul Miller incorporated Cannons Marina and David Miller gradually accumulated shares of the business. It took 12 years, but he assumed full control. “I started more sales versus rentals,” he says, when asked what changes he instituted. “And slowly the sales surpassed the rentals.”

Not long after, Paul Miller was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. David refashioned the cottages across the street and provided 24-hour in-home care for his father, who died at age 74, and his mother, who died 10 years later at 83. “For David to show that type of commitment to his parents, I think says volumes about his character,” Capo-Miller says.

Photo by Lori Sax

These days, Cannons Marina is humming along with 19 employees. Jim Gallagher, who runs the boatyard, stops by to join the interview session for a few minutes. At 55, he’s been with the company for 38 years. “I get out on the water just about every day,” he says. “I’m staying here until I’m no longer working.”

The business has a boat brokerage to go along with sale and rentals. Although Cannons employs a general manager to oversee the day-to-day, “We trot everything by David,” Capo-Miller says, then adds with a grin: “We tried not doing it that way, and it didn’t go well.”

Asked if he has an exit strategy, a plan to sail into the sunset, Miller replies: Not unless someone comes along to buy the place.

“He’s not going to sell,” Capo-Miller says, then Miller interjects, “Everything’s for sale.”

The takeaway: Anyone who wants to own Cannons Marina better approach with a fat wallet. 

Miller caps off the exchange with, “As long as I own the place, I’ll be around.”