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About Me

Dr. Leslee F. Keys

is a retired History/Public History faculty member and Director of Historic Preservation with Flagler College and is the Principal with Keys and Associates, LLC, a Heritage, Arts and Cultural Preservation firm based in St. Augustine, Florida. She has decades of professional experience assisting communities and non-profit organizations supporting preservation, planning, museum development, disaster resilience, and community engagement. She co-chaired and participated in hundreds of conferences, including co-chairing the 2019 international Keeping History Above Water program in St. Augustine. Her fundraising expertise has assisted organizations and communities in securing more than $100 million.

From 2008-2015 she served as Flagler College’s representative to the Viva Florida 500 Commemoration and the St. Augustine 450th Celebration, including orchestrating events on campus for the Royal Visit of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain, held in 2015.

Keys has made nearly 150 presentations in 107 cities in 18 states, and Washington, D.C. She was a World Monument Fund-Britain Sponsored Delegate to the Sea Change conference in England. She worked in Dayton, Louisville, Jacksonville, the Florida Keys, and Northeast Florida where, among other duties, she directed rehabilitation and construction projects for historic properties.

Her published books and articles include Hotel Ponce de Leon: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Flagler’s Gilded Age Palace (University Press of Florida, 2015), for which she received the first William L. Proctor Award from the Historic St. Augustine Research Institute.  She is co-author of Hotel Ponce de Leon:  The Architecture & Decoration (2013) and the companion volume Flagler College:  The First Fifty Years, 1968-2018 (2019).  She was the academic editor of St. Augustine America’s First City:  A Story of Unbroken History and Enduring Spirit (2015).

She holds a doctoral degree from the University of Florida in Historic Preservation and is the recipient of the inaugural Distinguished Alumni in Historic Preservation award. Among a variety of other awards, she received the inaugural Roy E. Graham Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation Education from the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation and serves as a Trustee Emerita of the organization. She is the recipient of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions Lifetime Achievement Award (2024), Adelaide Sanchez Award for Historic Preservation and Restoration from the City of St. Augustine (2023) and the St. Johns County, Florida, ROWITA – Recognizing Outstanding Women in the Arts award (2020),

Dr. Keys completed master’s programs in History with honors and Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech and holds a bachelor’s degree in History, Pre-Law and Political Science from Ball State University and is an Honors College graduate.

She has renovated six historic houses for personal residences, with family climbed Mt. Rainier for her 40^th birthday, collects works by Florida authors and artists, and enjoys indulging five grandchildren and their parents with the “best grandpa ever.”

Recent Publications

“The Modern Wonder of the Ancient City.” The Classicist, Vol. 17, New York: Institute for Classical Architecture & Art, 2020

“A Tale of Two Cities, Annapolis and St. Augustine: Balancing Preservation and Community Values in an Era of Rising Seas.” Parks Stewardship Forum, George Wright Society, UC Berkeley, 36:1, 2020

Media Coverage

numerous online presentations The Invading Sea: Florida and the Climate Crisis. “Historic buildings tend to be built better – a historic preservationist discusses how climate change is affecting historic buildings. Florida Atlantic University, Octob

Social Media

www.linkedin.com/in/lesleekeys

Country Focus

United States

Expertise by Geography

United States

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Local & Regional, Public History, Women