Our Company
Houston Trust Company was founded upon a company-wide commitment to personal service. Our team has become an extension of the families with whom they have worked over multiple generations.
We measure success not in the clients we gain, but in the business we keep.”
DAVID R. LUMMIS, President & CEO
Our Values
We are a modern trust company built on traditional values.
We are influenced not by trends, but by our responsibility to sustain current and future generations.
The foundation of Houston Trust Company lies in our unwavering adherence to fiduciary duty, preserving and protecting our clients’ assets and best interests at all times. It is in this very principle that our company’s values take root.
Placing Clients Above All Else
Independence and Open Architecture
Innovative and Collaborative Approach
Honoring Family and Community Legacies
Our History
The oil and gas bust of the late 1980s led to the closure of 174 banks in Texas. James A. Elkins III, a former Executive Vice President of First City Bank, and his father, James A. Elkins, Jr., a former President of the bank, saw the need for a different and more stable type of high quality financial services for Houston families. They enlisted long-time family friend David R. Lummis, who recently had returned to Houston after several years on Wall Street and who shared their view that the trust services available to families in Texas were impersonal, inflexible, and of uneven quality.
In 1994, Houston Trust Company was founded by Elkins III, Lummis, and members of six other Houston families who desired a local, independent trust company to serve families like theirs across multiple generations. These founding families had pioneered many of the philanthropic, business, and civic institutions that make up the fabric of the Houston community.
First City Tower
James A. Elkins III
Originally housed in First City Tower in downtown Houston, the Company began with $205 million in assets under management and a staff of six, serving a handful of families with a single purpose: to manage capital as a faithful steward of a family’s legacy.
President and CEO, David R. Lummis
Today, Houston Trust Company is the largest privately owned trust company in Texas with more than $9 billion in assets under management and a staff of 42. The Company now serves more than 350 relationships throughout the U.S., most of them with connections to Houston or Texas. The Company operates out of one office in Houston. The original shareholders remain shareholders today, as do the Company’s employees.
In 2019, as it celebrated its 25th anniversary, Houston Trust Company relocated to 3737 Buffalo Speedway to serve its clients in convenient, modern offices.
Though much has changed since the company’s founding, the core aspects of the company have not: private ownership, a single office operation, strict adherence to fiduciary duty, and an unwavering commitment to stay the course for generations to come. These principles will enable Houston Trust Company to continue delivering consistently superior service to its clients.
3737 Buffalo Speedway