2025 Grand Marshal

A sense of place: Historian Michael Lambert chosen as 2025 grand marshal

For a long time now, when a question comes up involving an interesting old building in Plainfield, or the creation of a public space within the village, or the role of a figure from the past whose name still comes up now and then today, the query lands with Michael Lambert. He knows Plainfield stuff.

A lifelong resident of the village, the historically focused architect has made a point of documenting the community’s past by scrutinizing the way its buildings, events and people weave together to create the chronological portrait of a town. The Village Preservation Association, which presents the parade, chose Lambert to be grand marshal of this year’s Hometown Irish Parade, set to roll down Lockport Street at 1 p.m. Sunday, March 16.

“I’m a background person,” Lambert told a visitor one recent afternoon, surrounded by exhibits he has put together in the headquarters of the Plainfield Historical Society. “I do a lot of things behind the scenes that people don’t know about.”

Lambert, 63, brings extensive bone fides to his newest role. His firm, Arris Architects + Planners, operated out of a vintage house in downtown Plainfield for nearly a quarter-century. He retired, at least partially, in June 2024, having also spent the previous 11 years of his work life as preservation planner for the city of Geneva. 

In addition to serving as a trustee on the Plainfield Village Board from 1991 to 1996, Lambert was a charter member of the village’s Historic Preservation Commission, sitting on that board from 2004 to 2013. He served on the Will County Preservation Commission from 1992 to 1999 and was its founding chair. He has been the president of the Historical Society for the past decade, holding a board position off and on since 1998. And he has long been a member of the Village Preservation Association.

He grew up in Plainfield, the youngest of five kids - his twin sister Michelle is a few minutes older - and has always been drawn to the stories that live in a place with a long past. 

“I just really like to understand where we came from,” he said. “In some ways, it shows me we really aren’t that different from each other, and also how much farther we have to go.” 

By the time Lambert reached third grade, he knew he wanted to be an architect. He ultimately would go on to the University of Illinois, where he earned a masters degree in architecture with emphasis in preservation. But his masters thesis, submitted nearly four decades ago, stayed local. The project envisioned the expansion of Plainfield westward beyond the DuPage River, spotlighting the three pillars of any community’s downtown, the things that draw visitors there: its library, post office and municipal center. Today in Plainfield, the latter two lie west of the waterway, and the library is in the midst of a major expansion in the heart of the village. 

It was a pair of longtime village residents and farmers, Bud and Frances Patterson - siblings who happened to be Lambert’s grandmother’s first cousins - who helped nudge him to hone his hyper local focus on the past. One day in the mid-1980s, the Pattersons picked him up and the three took a ride past some of the numerous farms that had operated around Plainfield for many generations. Some of the vast expanses of crop land were already being transformed into new subdivisions, with stores and schools and all that comes with redevelopment. Everyone in the car understood that things were quickly changing.

”They said, ‘You need to do something to help preserve local history,’” Lambert said.

And so he did. Leaving any expectations at the door, he dove into investigating many of the town’s oldest structures and the people who put them there, and why. With one inquiry leading to the next, his hometown historical sleuthing became more intriguing as time went on, and new stories intertwined with many of the often-told older ones.

For Lambert, it was the humans breathing life into the stories who were the most interesting: Plainfield’s inhabitants themselves. They still are.

”It’s the people,” he said. “New people, old people - and I like the familiarity of a place, and watching it evolve.”

The long, long research project continues - and Lambert finds it keenly satisfying.

”I’ve had a blast doing what I’ve done,” he said. “You don’t realize how well you can know a community until you start looking at its history.” 

Irish blood isn’t a requirement for grand marshal selection, but it appears that at least some of Lambert’s forebears hailed from the Emerald Isle. A niece who has had her genes analyzed has assured him there’s abundant Irish blood in the family’s mix of Western European heritage. Some of it possibly came through his dad, Dick Lambert, who was adopted and passed away without much being known of his ancestry. What is known of the familial roots was traced through Mary Alice Lambert, Michael’s mom, who for decades was a shopkeeper in the village and passed away last July.

And he’s not really retired, either. He has ceased his architectural practice after 33 years, but continues to provide consulting services and has adjusted the name of his company - based in a historic Des Plaines Street house Lambert owns with Bob Navarro, with whom he also shares a historic home in downtown Plainfield - to Arris Architectural + Preservation Consulting. It’s what he does.

“I’m kind of the accidental preservationist,” he said with a smile.