Editors Building
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The Editors Building | |
 Editors Building in 2018 | |
  | |
| Location | 1729 H Street, NW, Washington, D.C. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°54′01″N 77°02′28″W / 38.90028°N 77.04111°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1949 |
| Architect | Leon Chatelain Jr. |
| Architectural style | Stripped Classical |
| NRHP reference No. | 15000072[1] |
| Added to NRHP | March 17, 2015 |
The Editors Building, also known as the Kiplinger Building, is a hotel and former historic office building located in Washington, D.C. The ten-story structure was built between 1949 and 1950, and was originally constructed as the headquarters of the Kiplinger Washington Editors, a financial advice publishing firm based in the city. It was built by the D.C.-based architect Leon Chatelain Jr. and designed in the Stripped Classical style, featuring a mostly unornamented façade with significant vertical massing. W.M. Kiplinger, the business's founder, was an avid collector of D.C.-area memorabilia, and he displayed his 7,000-piece collection in the Editors Building's lobby, hallways, and offices.
The publishing agency kept its headquarters located in the building until selling it in 2011. The new owners kept the exterior intact while gutting the interior, and in 2013 it reopened as a Hampton Inn hotel. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The Editors Building was constructed of a frame made of steel and concrete and faced with limestone. In general, the building conforms to the classical column–like structure of base, shaft, and capital that was common of tall office buildings of the early part of the 20th century, but differs from earlier examples in its more modern, less ornamented Stripped Classical design. It stands ten stories tall, and consists of a two-story base of five bays and an eight-story shaft with a seven-bay width. The base includes a central entrance which features recessed double doors made of bronze surrounded by an architrave of pink granite decorated with rosettes and topped with a frieze containing the engraved words "THE EDITORS BUILDING" in sans-serif capitals.[2]
The building's shaft is largely unornamented, with windows that are delineated vertically by the limestone walls and horizontally by spandrels made of pink granite. The result is one of emphasized verticality. In keeping with the design's muted style, the structure's capital is merely an attic of seven windows with a fluted cornice. The building's west-facing elevation consists of nine bays of windows set similarly to the front façade. The eastern side, however, was built with no windows as it was anticipated that later construction (what became the Matomic Operating Company building) would abut that elevation.[2]
The building's vestibule and lobby were built with walls and floors made of Tennessee gray marble. Elevators in the lobby provided access to the rest of the building, including W.M. Kiplinger's office on the ninth floor, the publisher's envelope-addressing machinery on the fourth, and a small bowling alley located in the basement.[2]
