Features
The 25 – John Leeke
Self-described “American Preservationeer” John Leeke has spent more than a half century as a woodworker, focusing primarily on exterior woodwork details and window preservation.
Leeke, the founder of the Portland, Maine-based Historic HomeWorks and the author of more than 200 articles and two books on restoration, learned woodworking from his father, who was taught by noted architectural woodcarver Keats Lorenz. His training began at age 12 when his father took note of his drawing ability.
“On Saturdays, he often sent me around town to draw the decorative details at important buildings like the Capitol, the governor’s mansion, the federal courthouse, and various churches,” Leeke says, adding that “I was learning some architectural history along the way.”
Soon, he was turning his sketches into woodcarvings, reproducing complicated historic patterns like grapevines and quatrefoils. Eventually, he inherited Lorenz’s tools, which he still uses.
“On my bench, then and now, are 102 carving chisels, with well-worn handles, sharp steely edges,” he says. “In my dreams, they glow and sparkle. When I wake up, they are an inspiration to get out to the shop and do what needs to be done, as Lorenz often said, ‘to make this world a more beautiful place.’”
Along the way, Leeke kept detailed work notes, from sketch to finished carving, that have become important historical documents in their own right.
“I followed this same practice with all my work on historic buildings through the next five decades,” he says. “They provided rich material for the articles I began writing for major preservation magazines in the 1980s.”
Throughout his career in the building preservation trades, Leeke has served a variety of roles—tradesman, contractor, consultant, and trainer—and in 2010 he co-founded the national Window Preservation Standards Collective, which has published a book on window preservation standards.
Although Leeke now devotes most of his time to writing and training tradespeople, he’s still right where he started out and right where he wants to be—at the bench.
