Keeping it Simple
KCRA-TV Anchor and Her Family Call Sacramento Home
By Elena M. Macaluso
November 2018
If KCRA-TV anchor Edie Lambert ever decides to leave television, working for the Metro Chamber of Commerce could be a new career path. Lambert loves Sacramento. But don’t get your hopes up too high, chamber folks. Lambert is pretty smitten with her job.
“I love my job and I love my city,” says Lambert, whose roots extend to both Orange County and the San Juan Islands, but who has called Sacramento home since 1995.
A political science major at UC Santa Barbara, Edie Lambert was working for the ABC affiliate in Santa Barbara when a position as a morning anchor and reporter opened up at KCRA-TV in 1995. “I’ve always had an interest and passion in covering politics,” Lambert says. “So, when I was offered a job in
Sacramento and could be in the heart of state politics, I jumped at it.” She has anchored the 5 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts for more than a decade. Lambert lives a short drive from KCRA-TV’s Downtown studios in a 1935 two-story Dutch Colonial-style home in East Sacramento with her husband of 10 years, former state Assembly member Lloyd Levine, and their daughters, Alise, 7, and Carlie, 4. Rounding out the family are Zeus, a 90-pound black lab chow mix; Bitsy, who Lambert and Levine bottle-fed after Lambert’s coworker found the kitten with her head stuck in a fence; and pet rabbit Simon, a gift to Alise and Carlie from Santa, who “may or may not have worked with the Sacramento House Rabbit Society,” reports Lambert.
The couple moved into their house a little more than four years ago when Lambert was pregnant with Carlie. Edie Lambert appreciates the history of her home and surroundings. A section of wrought-iron fence in her front yard is a gift from friend Patty Roberts, who lives on the Fabulous 40s property that Ronald Reagan and his family lived in while Reagan was serving as governor of California. The trees in Lambert’s backyard are more than 100 years old. “Truly, with some of these homes you feel like you are a caretaker for the time you are there,” she says.
Lambert credits living in East Sac with making her life as it is possible. “Where I live is part of what enables me to have the career that I have. I am able to come home and put my girls to bed every night.”
But the short commute is not the only reason Lambert loves the neighborhood. “I can walk to so many of my friends’ homes in five minutes. We do some of our shopping on foot. We walk to Trader Joe’s. We can walk to restaurants. I love that we have such a nice neighborhood feel.”
Two of those neighborhood friends are KCRA-TV co-anchor Kellie DeMarco and former KCRA-TV anchor/reporter Kristen Simoes. Alise and Simoes’ daughter, Gabriella, were born five weeks apart. Carlie and DeMarco’s daughter, Piper, were born 10 days apart. The two sets of girls have shared everything from nannies to clothes to books. The girls enjoy their time together while the moms are able to connect.
Lambert relishes having close friends in her industry. “We all just get each other. We understand the demands. We understand the unique pressures of our schedules. I feel we can be there for each other in some really unique ways. I’m very grateful for my village and my tribe,” she says.
Lambert’s hectic schedule—she doesn’t get home before midnight most nights—makes having quality family time important. Fun family hot spots include Effie Yeaw Nature Center, Crocker Art Museum and lunch on the Delta King followed by a walk around Old Sacramento. “It’s fun to play tourist in your own hometown,” she says.
When it comes to date nights, Lambert and Levine—who met on a Seattle-to-Sacramento Southwest flight in 2005—keep it simple. “We can always bank on date nights several times a year with our B Street [Theatre] tickets,” says Lambert. (Levine, who sits on the B Street Theatre’s board of directors, is president of the political consulting firm Filament Strategies, LLC, and a public policy fellow at UC Riverside.)
“We Uber to dinner, then we can walk to the theater. Often we will walk somewhere after for a glass of wine before we come home.” Stay-at-home dates are popular, too. It’s not unusual to find the couple outside on the front porch, catching up with each other and saying hi to the neighbors.
“Everyone is out walking their dogs or sitting on their front porches,” says Lambert, who sees herself retiring in Sacramento. “This is our home.”
