House Hightower of Oldtown is one of the oldest, richest, and proudest houses in all the Seven Kingdoms. They claim descent from Uthor of the High Tower, who is said to have built the first beacon on Battle Isle in the Dawn Age, and they have held the tower and the city beneath it for longer than any other line in Westeros: kings once, paramounts after, and lords of the Reach's first city since Aegon's coming.
For ten thousand years a flame has burned at the Hightower's crown, guiding ships up the Whispering Sound to the harbour beneath. Lord Leyton Hightower has not come down from the tower's upper chambers in a decade by the time of A Game of Thrones, brooding among his books and his crystals, leaving the city's day-to-day business to his daughter Alerie (who is also Lady Tyrell of Highgarden) and his son Baelor Brightsmile.