A small business in Keller doesn’t often toot its own horn. It doesn’t have to. Its customers are well-equipped to do that.
For a change though, Houghton Horns is trumpeting a milestone — its 40-year anniversary — and the musical instrument sales and service company is glad to accept a brassy fanfare from customers.
“I love what they do,” said John Morgan, a longtime customer and retired music educator. “They are just so helpful to young musicians, helping them find the right horn. They are just a tremendous asset and so much more than most music stores.”
Four decades is a long-held fermata — a long pause, for the nonmusicians — for any small business, but particularly for one that started in 1985 as Dennis’ Horn Shop in the founder’s Keller home. The business initially focused on brass instrument repair and instruction. As business became popular and reached a fortissimo, neighbors requested that founder Dennis Houghton consider a more appropriate location.
“They were tired of hearing brass instrument repair and practicing going all the time, and they politely asked him to get a proper office location,” said Kacie Wright, now a co-owner along with her husband, Derek, and Dennis Houghton’s son, Mark. Karen Houghton, Dennis’ wife and a horn instructor, is also a co-owner.
Derek and Kacie Wright are two of the co-owners of Houghton Horns in Keller. (Joseph Morgan | Fort Worth Report)
Founded when Duran Duran and synthesizers were all the musical rage, the family-run business focused on the less-trendy French horns, trombones and trumpets.
In February 2025, Houghton Horns began playing a new tune with a larger, 6,000-square-foot location that offers more retail space and a performance area with a stage and a grand piano.
The former church and funeral home at 137 Hill St. in Keller is becoming more than just a site for Houghton Horns’ many musician customers.
“It’s a space that will increase our connection to the community,” Kacie Wright said. “The city is sponsoring some concerts there, so it’s for our customers, but we want this to be a meeting spot for the community in general.”
Wright notes that she is the only nonmusician in management at the business.
Houghton Horns’ latest location is a former church with a performance space. (Joseph Morgan | Fort Worth Report_
137 Hill St.
Keller 76248
817-993-6400
“With a team full of musicians, you have to have someone here to pay the bills,” she said.
But having musicians on staff who know brass instruments has been key to their success.
“I think our secret is our in-depth knowledge of brass instruments,” she said. “Our founder, Dennis Houghton — if he doesn’t know it, nobody knows it. All of our staff are professional musicians.”
Like their customers, those employees spend a lot of time performing and teaching.
“We are intimately connected to the musical community and personally involved. It makes a big difference in the knowledge and expertise we offer our customers,” she said.
It was that in-depth knowledge that has sent Morgan back to Houghton Horns year after year, he said, but the company’s commitment to service and to the music community also stands out.
“My son was just learning the trumpet, and Houghton allowed him to take three horns home to decide which works best for him,” Morgan said. “That’s unheard of. And really helps young people develop their musical skills.”
Houghton Horns’ latest location in Keller is a former church with a performance space for musicians. (Joseph Morgan | Fort Worth Report)
Through the decades, Houghton Horns has survived several sour economic notes, such as the global pandemic, interest rate increases, rising tariffs on imported instruments and store relocations.
That, along with the usual financial pressures facing most small businesses, could have been a finale for many. But Houghton Horns has, appropriately enough, found creative ways to keep quality instruments accessible and affordable.
During the pandemic, for instance, Houghton’s brass specialists went beyond instrument repairs and new sales and launched Zoom consultations and expanded their social media efforts. Those strategies have continued to bear fruit, as the business uses Instagram and Facebook and shares resources for brass musicians by posting product reviews, instrument repair tips and beginner practice tips.
“Our YouTube channel, in particular, has become very popular,” Wright said. “Instrument repair videos, comparison videos. They do really well.”
Tariffs have been more difficult to manage. Many of the horns they sell are from overseas manufacturers, and 70% of the company’s sales prior to the tariff increases were online.
Customers asking simple questions about a product’s cost can no longer receive a simple answer, Wright said.
“It’s difficult to give someone a price quote when you don’t know what your costs are going to be,” she said. “A customer asks what a custom-made trombone from Germany will cost, and we can say, today it cost $7,000, but next week it may be $8,000 or maybe it will be $6,000. We have no idea what the price is going to be.”
Online sales are now closer to 30% of the company’s business.
“We had to raise our prices 10% to 20% on most of our products because they are imported, and online shoppers are very price conscious, so that has hurt us,” Wright said.
Fortunately, she said, the new space has created more in-person sales.
“While online sales have fallen, we’ve seen an increase on the storefront side because of our new space,” Wright said.
Customers like Morgan keep coming back because Houghton Horns offers them something they can’t find anywhere else.
“I’ve been dealing with them most of my career, and now I’m retired and I still play and I can’t imagine not having them around,” he said. “This area is fortunate to have them. It’s an asset that horn players know about, sure, but they contribute to the cultural life of North Texas.”
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/06/24/tooting-its-own-horn-keller-business-with-brass-focus-proves-its-mettle/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=628917&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/06/24/tooting-its-own-horn-keller-business-with-brass-focus-proves-its-mettle/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>