Built for the moments that matter, not the middle.
An independent fiduciary firm for executives and the families navigating the moments when a career's work turns into lasting wealth.
Lake House Private Wealth Management is an independent fiduciary firm for executives and the families navigating the moments when a career's work turns into lasting wealth — an acquisition, an IPO, a change-of-control payment, a major equity vest, the sale of a business.
These moments share a structure. They compress more high-stakes financial decisions into twelve months than the prior decade combined, the decisions interact with one another, and the windows to act on many of them close quietly and permanently. Handled in the right order, with the right professionals at the table, they can fund a generation. Handled reactively, they leak value that never comes back.
“I spent the first part of my career at JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch, and I'm grateful for it — that's where I learned how institutions manage money. But I kept noticing the same thing: the moments that mattered most in a client's life were exactly the moments a big firm was least built for. A sale, a vest, a retirement — and the answer was a model portfolio and a 1-800 number. I founded Lake House because the families navigating those moments deserve a partner who knows the whole picture and answers the phone himself.”
— Chris Gatsch, Founder & Managing Partner
Three structural choices.
Structural independence
We custody client assets at independent platforms — Schwab, Fidelity, and Raymond James. We hold no proprietary products and earn nothing from product manufacturers. The advice is the advice we'd give our own families.
Specialty depth over generalist breadth
The decisions at a vesting cliff or an acquisition aren't a retiree's decisions, and they aren't served well by a generalist. We deliberately built the firm around a few practices, because depth is what these situations actually require.
Built for inflection points
Most advisory relationships are designed for the steady accumulation years. Ours is designed for the comparatively short, decisive windows where the stakes and the complexity spike at once — and then to keep refining as equity continues to vest.
Most executives arrive with advisers already in place. That is usually right — they know your history. What is typically missing is somebody sequencing the whole picture across tax years, deal timelines, and trading windows.
Where to go next.
Who you'll actually work with
The people behind the firm, their credentials, and where they came from.
Meet the team →Fees & how we work
How we are compensated, what an engagement includes, and what happens before you become a client.
See the details →How we think
Ten in-depth guides and a 33-term glossary, free and ungated. The clearest picture of how we approach this work.
Read the guides →Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes. We'll talk through what's happening, what's already decided, and what's still open. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.
- It's a conversation, not a pitch
- No preparation required
- No obligation of any kind
Not ready to talk? Download the Discovery Workbook — the questions we'd ask you, so you can work through them on your own time.