Build Together
I look forward to the opportunity to listen, learn, and build something better for EP together.
About Ruarri
Ruarri was born in Wilmington Delaware in 1982 to Mary and Jerry Miller. He’s the oldest of four children. His mom worked as a pattern maker in the fashion industry who transitioned to carpentry and spent many years building for Habitat for Humanity. His father Jerry started his career as a car salesman at a Honda dealership. He remained in the automotive industry for the duration of his career and just recently retired.
In 2010, Ruarri married Ashley Lakin at Zion National Park in Utah. They moved to Providence that same summer so Ashley could complete her physician training at the Brown Family Medicine Residency. In 2013, Ruarri graduated from The Northeastern University MBA program with an emphasis in corporate finance.
In 2015, Ruarri’s growing family moved from Providence to Riverside, and The Apiary went from talking about change to building it. After nearly two years working alone as a carpenter, like his mother had, Ruarri made his first true community investment: 332 Bullocks Point Avenue, a blighted mixed-use building in Riverside Square. In 2018 he opened Proud Mary’s Donuts there, which grew into Union Bar + Burrito. In 2020 he bought 273 Bullocks Point Avenue, the long derelict building locally known as the Buckett’s Building. Previously condemned by the city, it now houses seven apartments and three businesses. Over the better part of six years, almost all of it self-performed, The Apiary turned those two buildings into two restaurants, an award-winning boutique, a corner store and ten apartments. In 2023 Ruarri bought 33 Veterans Memorial Parkway and renovated it into East 33 Creative Space, with artist studios, a gallery, a physical therapy studio and offices. The Apiary wound down as a contracting business in 2024 and today holds that real estate.
Ruarri attended Catholic schools through his high school years. In 2005, he graduated from The George Washington University in Washington, DC with a degree in political science. After college Ruarri moved to Philadelphia and worked in the family automotive business where he learned many of the business fundamentals from his father that he still applies to this day.
Shortly after graduation, Ruarri founded The Apiary; a general contracting company and practitioner of Incremental Development strategies. The Apiary started with ambitions to revitalize historic Main St. in Woonsocket. Unfortunately, market obstacles and the sheer size of the project proved to be insurmountable. However, that setback taught Ruarri invaluable lessons about the challenges obstructing the revitalization of bereft communities. Ruarri pivoted from spending his time creating financial models to swinging a hammer 8 hours a day.
Ruarri and Ashley live in Riverside’s Narragansett Terrace neighborhood with their three boys, Thaddeus, August and Eamonn. Ashley (Dr. Lakin) practices family medicine at Flora Family Health on Bullocks Point Avenue, in a building Ruarri converted for the practice.
In 2023 Ruarri founded East Bay Air Systems, a heat pump installation company based in East Providence that serves Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts. He is Vice President of Riverside Little League and coaches youth baseball. In 2022 he ran for Mayor of East Providence; that campaign’s platform and materials are preserved on this site under 2022 Campaign.