character home

We do not regret preservation. We regret building and erasing. The past persists as unpredictably as the future unfolds.

Preservation, Inc. is an architectural history practice built on fieldwork, documentation, and public use.

The work helps residents, organizations, and local governments understand historic properties, evaluate significance, and plan next steps within established preservation frameworks.

Projects draw on tools such as cultural landscape analysis, historic context development, and resource evaluation so change can happen without erasing local character, cultural patterns, or historic fabric.

Current surveys of more than four hundred early twentieth century houses in Boise serve as a working laboratory where roof forms, clapboard siding, window patterns, porches, and lot layouts reveal design intent and neighborhood growth.

Additional work includes evaluation of a municipal water tower for nomination, documentation of a mid twentieth century high school complex in rural southern Idaho, and study of prewar commercial buildings along main streets shaped before interstate highways redirected travel.

Parallel research also supports an exhibition on mid twentieth century architects working across the Intermountain West.

Survey methods follow established standards used in historic resource surveys and eligibility evaluations while staying adaptable for Idaho State Historic Preservation Office records, Certified Local Government programs, Section 106 review, and local planning processes.

Descriptions rely on observable conditions, supported by photographs, measurements, and archival sources, so findings can move cleanly across survey records, nominations, grant work, and planning decisions.

The practice also includes architectural analysis across urban, suburban, and rural places, interpretation of cultural narratives tied to identity, gender, labor, migration, and exclusion, advisory work for historically informed design and stewardship, and public history through publishing, lectures, exhibitions, and community education.

If something nearby needs care or clarity, reach me at jeff@characterhome.com or jeff@preservation.ltd.

jeffery holley

principal | architectural historian, Preservation, Inc.

Architectural History + Historic Preservation - MArH, BArH

415.776.5333 + 208.481.7194 Anytime

www.linkedin.com/in/preservation

I’m deeply grateful for the generous support that made my University of Virginia journey possible. My sincere thanks go to the Colonial Dames of America Scholarship, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Henry J. Javor Bicentennial Scholarship, the Peter R. Kutscha Endowed Memorial Scholarship, the Peter L. Page Scholarship and Grant, the Frederick Doveton Nichols Award, the UVA Society of Architectural Historians, and the UVA Architecture School’s Center for Cultural Landscapes, the City of Charlottesville, and the Darden School of Business. Their investment in my education means I pay it forward to the emerging historian community.

17-May-2026