The team
The grove.
Five people, deliberately few — every tree in this grove gets walked to. Small was never the constraint here; it was the design.
The people who'll know your plan by heart.
Good planning is craft plus care, held steady for years. Everyone here has both — and your file never gets handed to a stranger.
Planted the firm twenty-three years ago and has tended it ever since. James plans slowly on purpose, measures everything in years, and still answers his own phone — a habit he has no plans to retire.
Partner, and a hand in nearly everything the firm has grown into — including the insurance licenses the occasional client situation calls for. Conversations with Anne run long, in the best way.
Keeps the firm's seasons running on time. Robert is why reviews land when promised and paperwork never sits in a pile — the quiet rhythm underneath everything clients experience.
Tends the firm's voice — the letters, the website, the seasonal notes — and builds the quiet systems that keep a small firm feeling personal at 150+ families.
Raised just outside Marquette and schooled at Northern Michigan University, Sam is usually a client's second call after James. He treats the trust people hand him as the whole point of the job — because it is.
A note on keeping time
“Markets count in quarters. Families count in years. I decided early which clock Heartwood would keep.”
Twenty-three years on, the firm still runs on that sentence — and the grove stays small on purpose, so the person who answers your call already knows which winter your plan is in.
Meet us before you decide anything.
A first conversation costs nothing and asks nothing — just a chance to see whether the grove fits.
No obligation, no pitch. Most days, it's James himself who picks up.