People & Places

Klein Architecture + Design

Their Story

Winfield and Tracey Klein met in 2002 when Tracey, a Certified Kitchen Designer, was working for a prominent Interior Designer in Sonoma County and Winfield, a fine art student, was working as a textbook illustrator. Winfield started creating 3D renderings for architects and that ignited his career and lead to him becoming a licensed Architect. Winfield and Tracey began working together at a Santa Rosa architecture firm, and ten years later formed their own design firm in Santa Rosa. Out of that grew Klein Architecture + Design. They are a two person, Santa Rosa based, architecture firm that specializes in custom residential design. Within their first month as an architecture firm Sonoma County was ravaged by fires destroying thousands of homes, including Tracey’s childhood home that her parents had lived in for 40 years. The next year and a half were trying times for Sonoma County, as Winfield and Tracey helped friends, family and clients rebuild their homes. Winfield and Tracey are proud to live in Sonoma County and to be able to help others create beautiful places to call home.

Helping to Rebuild: “Les and Robin Proteau’s Coffey Park neighborhood home, on Ridgecrest Court, was designed by their son-in-law, architect Winfield Klein.”

Les and Robin Proteau had a lot going on when the Tubbs fire leapt across Highway 101 in the early hours of Oct. 9, 2017, and destroyed their home of nearly 40 years. A crew was coming that week in 2017 to install solar panels. The couple was supposed to depart on a cruise from Florida to San Francisco by way of the Panama Canal. But the wildfire swept away their home on Ridgecrest Court along with 1,472 others in Coffey Park.

“The shocker for me was when we went back in the first time,” said Les Proteau. “We had a hard time locating (the house) because of all the damage.”

As luck would have it, the Proteaus’ home had been appraised less than four days before it was destroyed. The appraiser had detailed photos and measurements that helped the couple settle their insurance claims faster. Soon, they were deciding how exactly they wanted to rebuild their home. “Over the years, we had built an addition above the garage and remodeled interiors to make it more adaptable to us,” Proteau said. “After the fire, we decided to design and build what we wanted. Not what we fit inside, but what fits us.”

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Read more stories about the post-Tubbs fire rebuild