Lockport Street House That Underwent 'Painstaking Restoration' Receives Landmark Status

PLAINFIELD, IL — A Lockport Street home built in the late 1800s has received landmark status.

The Village Board unanimously voted Monday night to award landmark status to the Queen Anne house at 23822 W. Lockport St., constructed in 1888.

The structure is "an [E]xceptional Queen Anne house with Gabled ell vernacular core" and has "excellent integrity," according to a memo from Director of Planning Jonathan Proulx, addressed to the Village Board.

"It was proposed for landmark status primarily for the architectural detailing," Proulx said at the meeting.

To be listed in the National Register of Historic Places, a property must both prove significance that meets the program's criteria and "have integrity." According to Plainfield staff, the house has undergone a "painstaking restoration" that returned it to its 1888 appearance and function.

"The property is also noteworthy for having been held in ownership of the same family relations for the entire tenure since the structure's construction," Proulx wrote in the memo.

Michael Lambert, a retired Plainfield architect and longtime president of the Plainfield Historical Society, oversaw the restoration of the house, which at the time had been "kind of made into the '70s," Mayor John Argoudelis said. It was one of Lambert's first projects after graduating from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, according to Proulx.