Houston Intown Magazine

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september + october 2020

Thomas Woltz’s Indelible Landscapes

The Last Page Music Will Go On A New World Order COVID Financial Takeaways Coach O On College Football

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intown

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/ September + October 2020 september + october 2020

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Thomas Woltz’s Indelible Landscapes

The Last Page Music Will Go On

10

A New World Order COVID Financial Takeaways Coach O On College Football

ON THE COVER

14 18

22

18-19

6 PUBLISHER’S LETTER 10-12 ARTS + EVENTS

14-16 THOMAS WOLTZ’S

CEREBRAL DESIGN

20-21

22

THE GAME: LSU COACH ED ORGERON FINANCIAL FOCUS THE LAST PAGE

PRODUCTION

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4 | Intown | September + October 2020

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Publisher’s Letter On My Mind As tears streamed down Willie Nelson’s face on the Jumbotron as he serenaded the crowd with “Always On My Mind”, I wondered why he was crying. It turned out that it most likely was over the recent death of a band member.

Little did Willie or the rest of us know that the world was about to change.

It was March 12, only a few days after I had attended the rodeo to see one of Texas’ greatest treasures perform. The announcement shot out over the airwaves and internet that the remainder of the rodeo had been canceled.

Mayor Turner and the rodeo had agreed to forego the rest of this world-class event to protect the city from the spread of some virus called COVID-19. It reminded me of the feeling I got as a kid the day I heard President Kennedy was shot.

What ensued was a city shutdown that caused many businesses to close, gatherings to cease, and lives to drastically change. Today with many lives lost and the unpredictable nature of our lives, Willie’s words from that favorite song ring clear:

“The little things I should have said and done I just never took the time”.

The pandemic still threatens our ability to assemble in large groups and do so many things we enjoy; however, we can now more effectively treat patients and prevent the spread. We also know a few simple protocols of masks and social distancing slow and even stop the spread. We know our numbers in Texas, and the US cases, have slowed and decreased as a result.

Despite the suffering, hope springs eternal because that is all there is.

New World As we look ahead, we see a new world order and a reincarnation of some of the old. Drive-in movie theaters are back again due to the closure of indoor theaters. Bicycling has also become a popular choice for many families. While it is evident that much of this virtual world will continue in the future, I welcome returning to life as we knew it pre-COVID. It may be a while before we shake hands again. I will relish the opportunity when it arrives.

Remember the abandoned, homeless, unemployed, underemployed, and so many suffering from homelessness due to these unforeseen and uncertain circumstances. We are indeed all in this together.

Despite the suffering, hope springs eternal because that is all there is.

That evening with Willie Nelson will always be on my mind.

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Arts +

EVENTS

Artupdate houston published every two weeks by houstonintown. Go to website and sign up for newsletter to receive free update.

COVID19 Arts Update for Houston At this time of year INTOWN Magazine normally would be presenting a detailed update on the upcoming performances schedules of Houston’s premier musical organizations. As we know all too well, however, these are certainly not normal times.

There seems to be not one aspect of our collective lives that this pandemic has not impacted. How we (or do not) work, shop, worship, entertain, visit friends, travel, and interact with society in general are just some examples of how we have all been affected.

For the time being going to Minute Maid Park, the Toyota Center and NRG Stadium are simply not a possibility. The same is true for our vibrant arts community. The performing venues are dark and, realistically, as with the rest of our lives, the immediate future is unknown. Here is the latest information from our musical presenters for the 2020-2021 season: Houston Grand Opera

I spoke recently with Perryn Leech, the Managing Director of Houston Grand Opera. He told me that essentially no live performances are planned until the summer of 2021. “It is quite simply impossible to rehearse and perform before any sized live audience without threatening the safety of all involved.” Like most similarly sized organizations, HGO has reduced its administrative budget by about one third.

There will be some digital performanc-

es, however, beginning this September. The “Live from the Cullen Recital Series” has been recently announced as well as a “re-envisioned HGO Studio Showcase” televised series with its global streaming partner, HGO is pleased to announce HGO Digital, its all- new program of digital works for the 2020–21 season. Starting in September and extending through April 2021, HGO will release original video content bimonthly for audiences to enjoy from the comfort of their homes, free of charge. Programming in-

cludes one three-act opera, three one-act operas, three concert events, and a special documentary project on the making of HGO’s world-premiere opera based on the children’s book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

In addition, HGO Digital will present the Live from the Cullen Recital Series, featuring opera stars Tamara Wilson, Arturo ChacónCruz, Reginald Smith Jr., and select HGO Studio artists in the fall 2020 releases.

To support the series, Sarah and Ernest Butler, longtime HGO supporters, have made the extraordinarily generous pledge of $1 million to help underwrite HGO Digital programming. The pledge will support both Houston Grand Opera and Austin Opera, creating a strategic partnership between the two Texas companies.

For more information, please go to www. houstongrandopera.org.

River Oaks Chamber Orchestra

I discussed ROCO with Alecia Lawyer, Founder and Artistic Director, and she said that ROCO will move forward with the 2020-2021 season this fall and will perform only as live-streams, not to an in-person audience. ROCO has already been live-streaming for over seven years. The ROCO Gala,

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normally held after the first concert, will be a virtual event on September 25, 2020 with live performances streamed and meals by one of Houston’s leading chefs, Robert Del Grande, delivering gourmet meals to each home.

For updates, please go to www.roco.org.

Houston Symphony Orchestra

I reached out to Vicky Dominquez, Chief Operating Officer, and Eric Skelly, Director of Communications for HSO. From a recent press release Since canceling the balance of the 20192020 Season and its usual slate of summer performances in early March, the Houston Symphony has been turning out reams of content to keep its audiences connected and entertained during quarantine (www.houstonsymphony.org/listenathome). The Symphony has been continuously performing live concerts for its audiences via livestream.

Beginning in May the Symphony began live-streaming its Living Room Series. Each Friday night, a musician from the Houston Symphony hosted a live-streamed concert from their home.

This gave way to Live from Jones Hall, a new series going on now, in which Hous-

ton Symphony musicians perform live from the stage of Jones Hall each Saturday night.

It’s hosted by Executive Director/CEO/holder of the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair John Mangum, and each program showcases Houston Symphony musicians, socially distanced onstage, in programs that balance the familiar (e.g.: a Brandenburg concerto from J.S. Bach) with the less familiar (a movement from a Florence Price string quartet).

An update on the 2021-2022 season was to be issued after the INTOWN publishing deadline.

For updates, go to www.houstonsymphony.org

Houston Ballet

Houston Ballet’s Public Relations Manager, Jacalyn Lawton, provided INTOWN with its latest information.

Due to the ongoing pandemic and recovery forecasting, the schedule for Houston Ballet’s fall in-theater performances has changed. Season package repertories, Love Letters (September 11-20, 2020) and Mayerling (September 24 – October 4, 2020) will not be held in person during their regularly scheduled times. Subscribers will receive fulfillment for this portion of their investment via to be determined digital fall programs and/or rescheduled in-person performances in 2021. The Nutcracker (November 27

September + October 2020

| Intown |11

months about alternative programming, after further discussions with artists unions and healthcare partners.

For updates, please go to www.houstonballet.org Houston Civic Symphony

– December 27, 2020), which generates $5 million in revenue, will not be performed as planned. The organization hopes to hold its first in-theater performance with the Margaret Alkek Williams Jubilee of Dance on December 4, followed by a limited number of performances of a holiday special. Subscribers will receive more information about these changes via email.

The nonprofit, which lost $1.3 million in revenue over three canceled ticketed productions alone, filled the remainder of its canceled 2019-2020 season with an abundance of digital content. It upheld its promise to season subscribers and single ticket holders through Brunch with Houston Ballet, delivering exclusive on-demand videos of 16 previously recorded ballets. HB at Home, a so-

12 | Intown | September + October 2020

cial media series of videos, welcomed viewers daily to new dancer generated content. The well-established Dance Talks lecture series reached new audiences through digital Zoom conversations entitled After the Curtain Falls and The Dancer Perspective.

“We are not finished creating,” says Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch. “We’ve demonstrated that time and time again. While the future is uncertain, this is not. We can and will bring high-quality art to this city through dance, whether you see it from the house of a theater or your living room couch.”

Houston Ballet’s staff members are diligently preparing solutions for multiple scenarios in a reimagined 2020-2021 season.

They hope to know more in the coming

President Al Thomas advises that they have suspended rehearsals and concerts through the end of the calendar year. They are hoping that their first performance will be in March, 2021, where their Young Artists winner perform.

For update, please go to www.civicsymphony.org Houston Brass Band

Artistic Director, Bob Walp, told me that the members are meeting via ZOOM post the INTOWN deadline to determine their collective ideas of the coming season.

He also mentioned that the annual Middle School and High School young musicians competitions will be held during the year. The Middle School contestants will be judged by members of HBB, and the High School students will, as usual, be judged by the brass players of the Houston Symphony.

For updates, please to www.houstonbrassband.org

WORTHWHILE CONVERSATIONS

WHAT NOW? WEALTH PLANNING DURING COVID-19…

J. Harold Williams, CPA/PFS, CFP®, and Jessica Banitt, CPA, CFP®, discuss wealth planning strategies during uncertain market conditions.

DOES THE COVID-19 EXPERIENCE MEAN THAT WEALTH PLANNING IS NOW TOTALLY DIFFERENT? No, not necessarily. Market and economic conditions continue to change, but good wealth planning comes from being consistent in making sound decisions.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE SOUND DECISIONS WHEN THE FUTURE IS SO UNCERTAIN? In nearly 50 years of wealth planning, we have worked with families who can personally recall terribly uncertain conditions. In 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union were staring each other down over nuclear missiles in Cuba and plenty of people felt it could be the end of civilization. In 1974, a sitting U.S. President resigned from office in disgrace and the average citizen’s faith in our government reached an all-time low. There have been times, of course, when the future looked bright. In 2000, we ushered

in a new Millennium amidst great optimism, following a decade that saw the fall of the Iron Curtain and a peace dividend.

SO, WHAT IS YOUR POINT? Certainty or uncertainty about the future is an unreliable basis for building wealth. Ryan Patterson, CFA, CFP®, our Chief Investment Officer, puts it this way: “When everyone is feeling good about the future, the prices of financial assets are higher, reflecting that feeling.

When few people feel good, prices are discounted and opportunities are greater.” If you invested in U.S. stocks during the month of the Cuban missile crisis, you were 30% richer one year later. If you put money to work in U.S. stocks during the month Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency, you were 250% richer ten years later.

If you waited for the turn of the Millennium to put your money to work in U.S. stocks, you were 35% worse off two years later.

SO -- THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME? Circumstances may change but financial behavior should be disciplined, not reactive. Most families benefit from the coaching of an experienced, 100% fiduciary wealth advisor. That is the model we follow at Linscomb & Williams. We have the credentialled and experienced team ready to sit down and formulate a plan for your success right now, right here.

For more information, or a copy of our Form ADV, Part II, with all of our disclosures, call Grant Williams at 713 840 1000 or visit www.linscomb-williams.com.

Linscomb & Williams is located at 1400 Post Oak Blvd., Ste. 1000 in Houston, TX For more information call 713 840 1000 or visit www.linscomb-williams.com.

Linscomb & Williams is not an accounting firm.

COVER STORY

Reflecting Pool with Barnett Newman’s Sculpture, “Broken Obelisk”

Photo: Savannah Holly

Green Space with Garden Bench

Landscape Architect Thomas Woltz’s Cerebral Design at Rothko Chapel

By Virginia Billeaud Anderson

R

14 | Intown | September + October 2020

othko could be high minded. He dumped his gallerist Sidney Janis because Janis represented that twerp Warhol. And he butted heads with architect Philip Johnson over the Rothko Chapel’s design. Rothko’s need to control his paintings’ presentation caused Johnson to depart the project. Why uptight? As a philosopher priest of the Abstract Expressionist movement, Rothko believed art’s dead serious purpose was to transform the viewer, and evoke transcendence and the sublime. For John and Dominique de Menil’s chapel commission, he painted encompassing abstractions with large expanses of color which direct the viewer inward. Fifty years after it opened, the Rothko Chapel is undergoing a $30 million renovation and expansion to continue its mission as a meditative space which is also a venue for cultural and philosophical exchanges on themes such as social justice, in which the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela participated.

Landscape architect Thomas Woltz is fanciful shellac on the chapel’s expansion. Described as visionary, Woltz’s green spaces straddle an ambitious master plan. It prioritized repairing the building, to keep the art safe, one clue to the art’s value is an insane auction sale price of $86.9 million. It rejiggered the skylight (Rothko forbade spot lights), so evenly distributed light reveals tonal variations, and enhances the sanctuary’s

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Architectural Renderings: Left, Visitors Center Offices Archives Auditorium Courtyard from Rothko Chapel website. Right, Meditation Garden, for completion 2023

atmosphere. The plan also includes a visitors’ welcome center with gift shop and bookstore, an admin office, archives building, and a program and lecture center, unified by a courtyard.

You can learn a lot about Woltz from his other gigs. After being assailed by Hurricane Ike and a scorching drought, Memorial Park was a mess. Woltz designed a 10-year master plan to restore and revitalize the park. His plan required meticulous research into the land’s natural ecology, he dug into hydrology, into geology, wildlife, as well as public opinion, about 3500 Houstonians “weighedin” on subjects like bathrooms. Key is to remove non-native invasive species, reforest, and reintroduce native plants so the park’s coastal plains, Post Oak savannah and Piney Woods remain resilient for centuries. His master plan’s “inaugural” phase, Eastern Glades, opened in July.

It turned 100 acres of previously inaccessible land with geologic features that naturally trapped water into a lake and wetlands with walkways. A 30-foot land bridge to take pedestrians over Memorial Drive opens in 2022.

Equally important, Woltz researched the park’s history and culture to discover its “narratives,” for instance, archaeological findings revealed land use by Native American hunters, and by early settler cattlemen. The historical fact that World War I soldiers trained on the land before going to France where many perished, thus the park’s name, inspired Woltz to design a 90-acre “Memorial Groves” tribute to the dead.

Scientific and cultural investigations drove his work at Hudson Yards, the largest public space built in Manhattan in a 16 | Intown | September + October 2020

century. Its gardens and pathways with reintroduced Hudson River native plants transform a godforsaken hole with operating trains, into human space. Woltz’s ecological restoration of the Maori’s New Zealand farmlands, devastated by deforestation, erosion and overgrazing, resulted in the return of wildlife. To rebuild the Maori’s sacred burial ground, he reflected on their belief that spirit is in the plants, water, soil, and stones, and designed a ceremonial land bridge at their cemetery.

One wonders however if the sculpture garden he built for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice entertains the narrative thread of Peggy sprawled naked on her palazzo roof.

Additional facts. Woltz was born on a tobacco and cattle farm near the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural Virginia. His University of Virginia professor Warren Byrd brought him into his firm, Nelson Byrd Woltz. Today Woltz (b. 1968) owns the firm. He has offices in Charlottesville, Virginia and New York, with field offices in Houston and Melbourne.

He’s quick to say he couldn’t do what he does without his staff and collaborators, “extraordinary minds,” and “the most important asset in my life,” from varied disciplines, including anthropology and philosophy. A lightbulb moment was when a teacher said his design “sucked” because he had insufficient knowledge about the people who would use the space. Pivotal, he observed human use of piazzas and gardens while working for an architectural firm in Italy. This significantly expanded his definition of landscape. Not for him, the stale piety of pattern making.

Authenticity, Woltz told a Harvard

lecture audience, should be his profession’s highest principle. It is a landscape architect’s duty, “moral obligation,” to learn the land’s historical and cultural story. Narrative is as crucial to design as scientific and ecological investigations.

But not at the chapel. Rather than narrative, Woltz told “Intown,” his design reinforces the experience Rothko tried to express. Communing with the paintings, Woltz went from being transported to “slammed with blazing sun and Houston heat.” He reminds us that Rothko never had the chance to see the finished chapel, and experience his vision. “He tried to replicate the quality of light in his New York studio, but couldn’t fully anticipate the Houston experience. To borrow a phrase from our architectural collaborators, Architecture Research Office, the work is somewhat of a ‘posthumous collaboration’ between designers and Rothko.” The new outdoor spaces, with the same meditative and reflective qualities as the chapel, serve Rothko’s vision.

A plaza with garden benches connects the chapel with the reflecting pool that holds Barnett Newman’s sculpture “Broken Obelisk.” While the Holly trees that tower over it and provide shade and comfort and invite reflection appear mature, the nearby multi-stemmed River Birchs that enclose meditative spaces are in “hair transplant phase” (Woltz’s term). Might take a few years for the new plants to look as formidable as the site’s native live oaks. The meditation garden west of the chapel will open in 2023. All said, not everyone gives a damn about contemplating the Absolute. Expect some to unleash dogs to splash in the reflecting pool and cause a ruckus.

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WELCOMING NEW PATIENTS and ACCEPTING more than 50 HEALTH PLANS, including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare July + August 2020

| Intown |15

The

GAME

Interview with LSU Coach Ed Orgeron

AJ Hoffman: Coach this is going to be a crazy season for you guys. Have you even been able to set expectations for performance because you don’t even know what the expectations of an actual season are?

Ed Orgeron: We’re playing. We’re ready to go. We’re going to have 10 games in the SEC, which is going to be very challenging. We’re going to go as planned. We plan on having a great season.

AJ Hoffman: Coach obviously, you know, the thing that’s looming over this entire season right now is this COVID-19.

Have you talked to your players about how different the actual season will have to be in order for the guys to keep playing?

Ed Orgeron: Yeah, you know, first of all, we have to follow the COVID rules, Shelly and Jack, our trainers, I think are on the forefront of this. They know that they’re safe when they do get it. I think they know they get proper care, they get quarantined. We have a lot of information. You know, we wear our mask at practice, which is different. But you know what?

They get used to it. They tried their shields on one time. Some of them say it’s hard to breathe. You know I said we’ll find a solution to that. Whatever it is, we want to put our kids safety first. No question. But at LSU, we want to play football. Our kids are eager to play football. They worked all year. And I do believe we have a chance to have an excellent season.

AJ Hoffman: You know, you had a quote earlier, I guess probably three or four weeks ago, where you said college foot18 | Intown |September + October 2020

ball is, you know, the lifeblood of our country. And there’s a lot of people, particularly people in California or New York, who thought it was a silly comment. A Maybe they don’t understand what college football means to especially places like Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Like is it tough to explain to people outside of big time college football towns like how important college football is to certain parts of the country, particularly that southeast part of the country?

Ed Orgeron: Yeah, you know, I understand their point of view and I get it. And people have different views. And that’s what makes this country great. But I do believe you come Saturday night in Death Valley and LSU is playing Florida, LSU ‘s playing Auburn, and LSU’s playing Alabama, the town is, the restaurants are full, the hotels are full and everything is hopping. You see why football is so important to our area of the country. Now, I want to say this again. our safety of our players is most important, but if we can do it, we need to do it.

AJ Hoffman: Coach obviously, you know, the thing that’s looming over this entire season right now is this COVID-19.

Have you talked to your players about how different the actual season will have to be in order for the guys to keep playing?

AJ Hoffman: Now, the big thing that happened with this, and there’s been a lot of these games canceled with teams playing only their conference schedules, so you guys lose out on the home end with Texas. Should we assume that that’s going to be rescheduled at some point?

Ed Orgeron: I would think so. Well, obviously, we’d love it.

Texas is a great matchup for us, it was a great game last year. Houston’s a big recruiting area for us. So, yes, we want to play Texas.

AJ Hoffman: And obviously, you guys missed out on that Rice game, too. But how big of a deal is it for you guys to recruit in Texas?

Ed Orgeron: Huge. You know, some of the best players come from Texas and especially in the Houston area and Dallas. We’ve done very well. We’re doing very well right now.

We’ve got great players from Texas, they come to LSU and they enjoy it. Some of the best players have been from the Houston and Dallas area.

Fred Faour: Coach when you go into a season like this where everything is uncertain, if you don’t know how many fans you’re going to have; how much does that affect your team on the field and your coaching?

Ed Orgeron: Well, we’re not going to let it affect us. We got to block out the noise. Whatever happens, we’re going to have to deal with it. And it’s going to be the same with a lot of teams. I think the team that has the mental toughness, I think the team that deals with the task at hand is going to have success. Now obviously I want the stadium full at LSU. It’s a home field advantage, as you guys know. But I do believe we’re

going to have fans in the stadium. That’s not much my decision, but I’m looking to have a Tiger Stadium almost full and hopefully, hopefully we can do that.

AJ Hoffman: When you look back at that season and, you know, you mentioned beating Texas and really the SEC West just as a whole was great last year.

Is there I mean, do you really believe that that was the greatest college football season ever for a team?

Ed Orgeron: Yeah, it was a great year. You know, that’s not my decision.

But I’ve seen some great teams. We all have. I think that’s just a matter of opinion. But I do believe when you look at all the top 10 teams that we’ve beat and how we beat them, that is going to be mentioned as one of the greatest, if it’s the greatest, who ever knows, but I think it needs to be mentioned as one of the greatest teams.

AJ Hoffman: You mentioned Joe Joe Burrow and what he was expected to be. I didn’t see it in Joe Burrow before last season. Then really the truth is on tape, if you watch tape of Joe Burrow

before last season, there was reason to question him. When you met Joe, when you saw Joe, did you know that there was something special and you just had to find a way to get it out of him?

Ed Orgeron: Here’s the thing that I knew about Joe. We had a meeting. Joe didn’t want to talk any recruiting. He wanted to eat crawfish and talk football.

So, OK, we got a lot of crawfish and we can talk football. And we had a meeting and there was about six of us in that meeting as a football meeting. And I was in there. And it took me about five minutes to realize that Joe Burrow was the smartest guy in there, including me and his football IQ is off the charts. I’ve been around a lot of great football players, a lot of smart football players, but I knew then that he was going to be special. Now, his first year, Joe had to develop and then we got into the spread, which was really Joe’s offense, because he could make the decisions at the line of scrimmage and he had all that talent around him. But, you know, the balls that he threw, the decisions that he made, and some of the

plays that he made, that’s why he won the Heisman. What a phenomenal year.

Fred Faour: You recruit great coaches and you see your players develop as Burrow did. How important is it to get a staff of guys that can help you develop the players the way you want to see it done?

Ed Orgeron: When I took over LSU, I knew that recruiting, you know, that’s one of my strengths, when I took over LSU I wanted to get coaches that not only could recruit, I wanted to get coaches that knew the game of football, that studied the game of football. And we got you know, we got guys who have been in the NFL. We got guys that are 60 years old, still some energy. But they’re football coaches and they’re good men, I think we talk about development. We talk about ongoing skill development, about getting better, about character, about grit, and I think you see these five stars come, they’re great athletes, four star, it doesn’t matter. And they develop and they get better.

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3801 Kirby Drive, Suite 100 Houston, TX (713) 520-6090 | qctailors.com September + October 2020| Intown

|19

Financial

FOCUS

Covid-19 Financial Take-Aways T

here is no denying the impact COVID-19 has had on our day to day lives and the changes we have had to make as a result of the pandemic. Some of these changes, such as an increase in people working from home, may be here to stay even after the virus is better contained, while the cancellation of sporting events and concerts will hopefully only be a temporary inconvenience.

Despite all of the changes that have taken place over the past several months, one area that has been solidified as a result of the pandemic is the importance of having your financial house in order.

While having a good financial plan in place will not keep you from having to experience the storm, it can provide you with a safe haven to ride it out. Here are a few foundational pieces to a healthy financial plan to help prepare you for the uncertain times ahead.

1. Cash is king - If this experience has taught us anything, it is the importance of having adequate cash reserves to fall back on in case of an emergency. Most financial advisors recommend keeping 3 – 6 months’ worth of expenses in savings. In light of the recent experience with the coronavirus and the economic impact that has taken place, some people may feel more comfortable increasing their cash reserves to 6 – 12 months of expenses going forward. Re-

by Lantz Bowman, CFP®

Wealth Advisor, Linscomb & Williams

gardless of the amount you choose to keep in savings, it is important that your money is safe (i.e. FDIC-insured), easily accessible, and earns you a competitive return. “Competitive” is a relative concept. All returns on safe cash investments are extraordinarily low in the current environment.

2. Have an investment plan…and stick to it. Former heavyweight boxing champion, Mike Tyson, famously stated, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Investors certainly got punched in the mouth earlier this spring. From February 19th through March 23rd, the U.S. stock market (as measured by the S&P 500 Index) dropped almost 34%. The speed and volatility of the market’s decline was unprecedented and caused many people to fear we were heading towards a global economic depression. This panic led

some people to sell their stock investments in late March, causing them to miss out on the rapid recovery that has seen the S&P 500 rise by 45% over the past several months. While the market drop was unsettling for everyone, for those investors with a pre-existing investment plan and understanding of market history, they were able to use market selloff as an opportunity to rebalance their portfolios by selling some of their bond holdings so they could buy stocks at lower prices, tax loss harvest, and put some of their excess cash to work.

3. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Nobody wakes up anticipating that today may be the last day they will be able to walk or see their loved ones, but tragedy can strike at any time. If you were unable to work due to an injury or an illness, how would you pay your monthly bills? If you were to

die prematurely, are there enough assets available to provide for your loved ones?

If you cannot confidently answer either of these questions, you may need to consider purchasing additional disability and/or life insurance coverage. Along with having adequate insurance coverage, it is vital that you have the necessary estate planning documents in place to help your family, if you become incapacitated or died. If your health were to deteriorate to the point that you had to be hospitalized, do you have a durable power of attorney, medical power of attorney, directive to physicians and HIPAA authorization in place to allow your loved ones to complete financial transactions and make medical decisions on your behalf? Do you have a will? If so, does it accurately reflect your wishes for how you want your estate to be distributed to your heirs? The coronavirus pandemic has reminded us all about the fragility of our bodies and the brevity of life. Don’t continue to put off updating your insurance and estate plan. Plan ahead now so you (and your family) have one less thing to worry about should tragedy strike.

While each of these tasks can be completed on your own, there is value in having someone on your team to use as a sounding board, and to help hold you accountable so you don’t make costly mistakes. A fee-only, pure fiduciary wealth management firm can provide unbiased, comprehensive financial advice you deserve. Imagine the peace of mind you can derive from a sound well-grounded financial plan.

Linscomb & Williams is a Houstonbased wealth management firm established in 1971.

September + October 2020

| Intown |21

The Last

PAGE

Gerald D. Hines 1925 - 2020

H

ines is a legendary figure whose story and the multitude of buildings he created, remain synonymous with Houston.

He arrived in Houston in 1948, a time when the city was bursting at the seams with a bustling port and big oil.

The privately owned Hines real-estate company operates in 100 cities worldwide with offices in 17 countries and has built, acquired or managed more than 1,000 properties from Houston to Hong Kong.

While Hines is synonymous with the shopping mecca The Galleria, he opened in 1970, he and his company are also responsible for the downtown Shell Oil Company headquarters, 22 | Intown |September + October 2020

Pennzoil Place and the Williams Tower (the former Transco Tower), just to name a few.

In 2004 Hines became the first real estate firm to ever be recognized with the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Sustained Excellence Award.

The Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park, an iconic 2.77-acre greenspace at the foot of the Williams Tower, has long been a well-loved spot of tranquility. Hines sold the property to the city below market value, ensuring that the space will be preserved as a public park for generations.

While he spent a lot of his later years in London Hines exclaimed, “Houston will always be home.”

10 Magnolia Woods Dr/Kingwood $3,500,000 MLS# 91653116

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4019 Driscoll St/Montrose $799,900 MLS# 66254848

14510 Tivoli Dr/Terraces on Memorial $585,000 MLS# 66293976

5718 Winsome Ln/Galleria Area $449,000 MLS# 3073589

4010 Childress St/West University $449,900 MLS# 7161863

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803 Walkwood Cir/Memorial Thicket $485,000 MLS# 10567277

Proven Performance – Year After Year Over 18 years experience working with buyers and sellers of residential real estate in the Greater Houston Area.

David Michael Young

713-320-6453 david.young@elliman.com www.youngrealtyhouston.com 2001 KIRBY DRIVE, HOUSTON, TX 77061. 281.652.5588 © 2020 DOUGLAS ELLIMAN REAL ESTATE. ALL MATERIAL PRESENTED HEREIN IS INTENDED FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY. WHILE, THIS INFORMATION IS BELIEVED TO BE CORRECT, IT IS REPRESENTED SUBJECT TO ERRORS, OMISSIONS, CHANGES OR WITHDRAWAL WITHOUT NOTICE. ALL PROPERTY INFORMATION, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO SQUARE FOOTAGE, ROOM COUNT, NUMBER OF BEDROOMS AND THE SCHOOL DISTRICT IN PROPERTY LISTINGS SHOULD BE VERIFIED BY YOUR OWN ATTORNEY, ARCHITECT OR ZONING EXPERT. EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY.

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