Obituary: Jeffery Lee Robertson (1947-2026)

With profound sadness, we announce that Jeffery Lee Robertson (formerly Jeff Rounds) passed away in his Los Angeles cottage home, on the morning of Feb. 7, 2026, at the age of 79, following several years in decline with Alzheimer’s.

Jeffery Lee Robertson

Jeff leaves behind two sisters; Roni and Debbie, three children and five grandchildren. There will be no family funeral service or gathering.

Jeff lived and worked as an architect in Juneau for more than 25 years, and developed projects like the Juneau Birth Center, Ethel Lund SEARHC Medical Center and Alaska Discovery, to list a few. Jeff designed volumes of residential projects, adding cabinetry and details featuring his own woodworking skills. In Tenakee Springs he built a beautiful cabin and workshop for himself, commissioned a Maine lobster fishing boat to be brought to Tenakee, and worked closely with Gordon Chew on numerous projects.

Jeff’s final project in Juneau was the restoration of the Holy Trinity Church.

A bright and charismatic person, Jeff was the quintessential Renaissance man who taught himself to hunt, fish and cook in the backwoods of Maine, where he was born. And yet, it was in the Yukon and Alaska that he honed his great love for wilderness and his subsistence lifestyle. Working as an architect for the Canadian government gave him the unique opportunity to work alongside with First Nation communities of the Takini and Yukon Rivers, and included extensive work with the Vuntut Gwich’in people in Old Crow on the Porcupine River.

When Jeff first moved to Juneau, he purchased the wooden sailboat the Pourquoi Rene, which became his home and the way he explored Southeast Alaska. As a long-term Alaskan resident, one of his favorite things to do was host and cook for large outdoor parties including weddings, where he featured the game, fish or prawn of the day and home-grown vegetables.

Jeff truly loved and appreciated many who knew him: John Pond and Glady, Pete Crandall, Shar Smith and Johnathan Wolfson, Paul Grant, Nancy and Andy Spear, Karen and Jeff Wilson, Teresa and Jeff Sauers, Shar Fox and Jim Simmard, Lynn Schooler, Joel Bennet and Louisa, Alan McPherson, Nancy Simpson, Linda Buckley…and much more…too many to list…

Through meditation and yoga, Jeff met his third wife, Linda Buckley. Jeff and Linda attended many retreats led by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. After a long retreat they opened the Southeast Alaska Mindfulness Center. Overseas travels took them to Singapore, Bali, Thailand and Nepal. Linda has said many times he was the great love of her life and writes: “I am glad this obituary tries to sum up a larger-than-life man. Jeff’s legacy lives on in all the beauty he created with his architecture, woodworking skills, his children and grandchildren.”

John Pond, a very close friend of Jeff’s wrote: “Jeff had long put aside his drafting and woodworking tools due to his illness. A young woman in her twenties came to their house in Maine and said she had been studying as an apprentice cabinet maker for a few years and understood he may have a few tools for sale. Jeff had numerous wood chisels that were beautifully forged and crafted by himself that he had used for over fifty years. Jeff looked at her and said, you can have them all. The young apprentice cried on the door step.” John added, “I cried as well when hearing this account of Jeff”. For John Pond this “was who the man was.”

What this writing fails to convey was the arc of his life. As his children we often speak of the world of magic and vibrance that our dad created no matter where he travelled or who he stood by. Together we paint a colorful textured portrait, one where Andreas Vollenveider’s lyrical music curls and drifts across tannin bark sails, the soothing sounds of water lapping against the hull, the drifting motes of saw dust caught in beams of sunlight filtering into the woodshop, curls of wood shavings marking the floor, the delicious aroma of a new pot roast and fresh baked bread hanging in the air, and those bright blue eyes looking toward the distant horizon. Roam wild and free Dad.

Jeff has been greatly loved and will be missed.