Miami Herald - June 29, 2006
Charles Rabin, crabin@MiamiHerald.com

AIDS activist. Historic preservationist. Political consultant. And the outspoken brother of the former mayor of Miami-Dade County.

Luis Penelas Jr. was all of those and much, much more, according to those who knew him best.

"My brother lived his life, and it was a very full life. There wasn't a cause he didn't believe in and wouldn't go out and advocate for," said former county Mayor Alex Penelas.

Late Tuesday evening at Jackson Memorial Hospital, Luis Penelas Jr. succumbed to pancreatic cancer -- the same disease that took his mother's life a decade ago.

It was a short fight. Penelas only learned he had the disease a little over a week ago, though he had been suffering back pain for months.

"He spent 10 days in the hospital. There was no diagnosis until last week," said Alex Penelas.

Luis Penelas was 53.

According to his brother, Luis Penelas had spent most of the past two years investing in real estate with his father, away from the limelight he so used to crave.

A FAMILIAR FACE

News of his death came as a shock in the South Florida community he had called home since 1996.

Becky Roper Matkov is the executive director of the Dade Heritage Trust, an organization Penelas belonged to when he took his most famous plunge into the South Florida media spotlight.

It was June 2001 when Penelas leapt in front of a bulldozer demolishing the 1899 downtown Miami home of Dr. James Jackson -- the man for whom Jackson Memorial Hospital is named -- when the crew inadvertently damaged the Dade Heritage Trust building next door.

"It had to come to a screeching halt. He was on his [cellphone] the whole time dealing with the media," said Roper Matkov. The trust had fought, unsuccessfully, to preserve the Jackson home.

Penelas came to Miami from Cuba when he was 7. By the time he graduated from Hialeah High he couldn't wait to leave South Florida, he told The Miami Herald in 2001. Penelas said his mother couldn't come to terms with his being gay.

He later moved to San Francisco, where he sharpened his skills at antagonizing the establishment while working with the AIDS activist group ACT-UP.

He moved back to Miami in 1996, just in time to help his brother become mayor, twice. A year later, he buried his mother, Mirta Penelas. He also spent some time managing a Miami Beach bistro called Yuca.

Luis Penelas then bought a 1920s home in Miami's historic Buena Vista district and joined two organizations in which he immersed himself: The Dade Heritage Trust and Union Positiva, a Latino HIV/AIDS awareness organization where he served as executive director.

He also helped form the Miami-Dade gay rights group the Unity Coalition with "Ron" Saul Brenesky.

Brenesky said Penelas lobbied the Legislature for anti-bullying legislation for children and for HIV funding.

"He was with me when we fought for migrant workers," Brenesky said. "He was always there fighting for justice and the dignity of human beings."

Penelas made headlines fighting to keep the historic Hampton House, which roomed the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

He even persuaded his brother, who was mayor at the time, to speak up in favor of protecting the Miami Circle, a Tequesta Indian archaeological find near the mouth of the Miami River.

Luis Penelas claimed for years that he told his brother he would chain himself to a bulldozer, naked, if he didn't support saving the Circle.

"And he would have done it," said Roper Matkov.

Alex Penelas gave in. The Circle stayed.

IN NORTH MIAMI

The past two years had been quiet ones for Luis Penelas. His partner of three years, Ashley Devilliere, said Penelas sold the Buena Vista home he so loved, made enough money to retire, and bought a downsized property in North Miami where the two lived.

A typical day, according to Devilliere, was Penelas waking, having a cup of coffee, planting a plant, then the couple going out for dinner.

Two weeks ago, Devilliere said he returned from California to the couple's home and found his partner sick.

They went to the hospital, where Luis Penelas was later diagnosed.

"I have never met a nicer human than him," said Devilliere, a bartender at Houston's in Aventura.

"He was my father, my mother, my brother and sister and lover. I'm devastated," he said.

Penelas is survived by his brothers, Alex and Peter Penelas; his father, Luis Penelas Sr.; Alex Penelas' two sons; and his partner, Devilliere.

Services are scheduled for today at 11 a.m. at St. Brendan Church, 8725 SW 32nd St., Miami.

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Miami Herald staff writer Steve Rothaus contributed to this report.

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