Jeffrey Klee

 

Adjunct Lecturer of History & NIAHD

Email: jklee@wm.edu 
Regional Areas of Research: Atlantic World, Early America, United States
Thematic Areas of Research: Architecture, Historic Preservation, Cultural/Intellectual

 

An architectural historian, Jeff Klee came to MCWB Architects in early 2022 after a 17-year career in the museum sector, chiefly at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Architectural Research Department.  He received his BA in Architecture from Yale University and his MA and PhD in Art History from the University of Delaware. Klee is a specialist in early American architecture with particular expertise in the Chesapeake region and Boston. He is a prominent advocate for the value of the close field investigation of buildings as the best way to understand the history of architecture. Klee has served on the boards of both the Society of Architectural Historians and the Vernacular Architecture Forum and is currently a member of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources’ State Review Board.

At MCWB Architects Klee has been involved in both research projects and bricks-and-mortar restorations. He has done substantial work at the University of Virginia, including a Historic Structure Report on the Jefferson-era dormitory rooms and an update to the university’s preservation plan, which included an analysis of the essential characteristics of the university’s architecture. Klee has also undertaken major research reports on significant early buildings in Maryland, including the 1737 Old Treasury Building in Annapolis and the c. 1830 slave quarter at the Griffith-Burrall Farm in Frederick County.