Stewart & Patten

Stewart & Patten

Stewart & Patten was founded in 1997 in Lafayette, California by Suzanne Stewart and Joan Patten. The firm serves as an independent wealth manager for a concentrated group of West Coast families, with an emphasis on preserving purchasing power across generations. The practice operates without a large institutional platform, relying on direct relationships with a limited number of client families. The firm constructs portfolios across public fixed income, private credit, and direct real estate. Stewart & Patten uses individual bond ladders to manage interest-rate risk and liquidity, allocating the remainder of client capital to private debt funds and California commercial and multifamily real estate. The firm has placed capital with managers including Oaktree Capital Management for distressed and high-yield credit strategies. Real estate exposure includes direct investment in Northern California multifamily properties through LLC structures. The team is deliberately small, with Stewart and Patten remaining the central decision-makers on asset allocation and manager selection more than two decades after founding. The firm operates from a single office in Lafayette. Over the years, Stewart & Patten has introduced second-generation family members to the practice, building continuity for client relationships that often span multiple decades. Unlike multi-family offices that aggregate capital into proprietary funds, Stewart & Patten custom-builds each family's allocation using separately managed accounts and direct investments. This structure allows families to retain control over tax outcomes and liquidity, a distinction from pooled family-office vehicles common on the East Coast.