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Once upon a time, there lived a man named Joseph William Storey, who was born in Windsor but whose family moved to Chatham when he was very young. He went to school, married his high school sweetheart, Marjorie, and then was drawn to the bright lights of Toronto, where he learned how to be an architect.

After graduating in 1946, he did a very peculiar thing: He moved back to Chatham in 1947 to set up his architectural practice over a chicken hatchery, and so became a very big fish in a small pond . . . although those who knew him will tell you that he could have become a very big fish in just about any size pond he might have chosen.

That's because Mr. Storey was an excellent architect. In fact, the modernist firm he led for nearly 30 years completed more than 1,000 projects until his untimely death at age 52 in 1975.

How many other firms can boast numbers like that?

A few weeks ago, I went to Chatham to hear Mr. Storey's story. The Chatham Kent Community Foundation had decided, rightly so, to celebrate his life and amazing accomplishments with a bus tour — five open houses and a viewing of one of most spectacular religious spaces ever built in this country, "the Pines," a soaring, delicate white crown of a chapel completed in 1961 for the Ursuline Sisters.

"How he was ever able to persuade them to be so forward-thinking I never could understand," recalled structural engineer Herb Todgham as he showed us around the glorious interior that may be lost when the sisters vacate the building later this year.

Luckily, it's not hard to find other Storey designs to admire. Since there was little competition and many contracts for modern buildings after the war, Mr. Storey was the right architect in the right place at the right time. Indeed, it was almost laughable as we rode around town atop the double-decker tour bus: Modern house to your right, that's a Joe Storey; flat-roofed flower shop to your left, that's a 1956 design by his firm, as is the bandshell in Tecumseh Park, the Union Gas building, the YMCA, various schools, the Kent County Municipal building (where Mr. Storey's second office was located) and the Chatham Civic Centre, Mr. Storey's last work before he died suddenly.

On a street with the unlikely name Llydican Extension are at least 11 houses designed by his firm, according to our tour guide, Kim Storey, Mr. Storey's daughter and an architect herself. (Maybe you've heard of her — she and her husband, architect James Brown, did a little thing called Dundas Square in Toronto).

"For my father, the single-family house was his favourite work to do," she says. "For most modern-movement architects, this was the area of work where they were really talking about how they felt about architecture. This was where they talked about space, the relationship between interiors and exteriors, and even though these were relatively small projects in the scheme of things, they're all very, very important in determining how an architect practices."

Going through the open houses, a deeper understanding of the story of Joe is, indeed, acquired. Wonderful multicoloured slate in foyers tell of his love of texture; sometimes it can't contain itself, so it creeps up and becomes the fireplace mantle.

Such is the case in Brad and Laurie Langford's Llydican Extension home, which is lovingly appointed with appropriate mid-century furniture. Staircases that hover in mid-air like sculpture talk of his artistry.

His knack of extending planes by borrowing space from other areas, and his use of the same materials outside and in, speak volumes about his mastery of the modernist craft.

In the Pines chapel, it's understood that he must have been a very spiritual man.

Ms. Storey, who always wanted to be an architect, worked in her father's office during high school and university but regrets she didn't pick his brain a little more. Even still, she finds herself using his language all the time.

"That's just how you do things," she explains. "If you lived in a Victorian house, you do a doorway like that; if you lived in a Marcel Breuer-type house, then when you think of rooms, they have to have 10-foot openings to something else."

The house he built for his family in 1957 — the Breuer-inspired one — is still on Victoria Avenue, and the legendary story of how Mr. Storey wanted to transform the old sugar beet silos on the banks of the Thames River into an apartment complex still floats around. It's fitting that all of these things, both concrete and ethereal, should remain in this place that's so much richer for having known the architect named Joe.

"I think the legacy that Joe Storey leaves is about going out on limbs," Ms. Storey offers. "We should recover that excitement in creating that breathtaking moment when you go into a space and you say 'Wow!' "

But until we do, a good many of the "wows" will belong to Chatham.

Dave LeBlanc hosts The Architourist on CFRB Sunday mornings. Inquiries can be sent to dave.leblanc@globeandmail.com.