Endangered "Pastoral Capitalism" in Friendship Heights
The iconic GEICO complex will not be around much longer.
Just across the DC border in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with tall office and apartment buildings looming all around it, sprawls a handsome, low-rise mid-century modern office complex that looks like it should be much further out in the suburbs. It’s the GEICO Operations Center, built in 1959 and expanded in 1964. Designed by Philadelphia architect Vincent Kling, the GEICO complex is a time capsule of mid-century corporate aesthetics. The Montgomery County Planning Department has called the GEICO center “an outstanding example of an International Style complex composed of carefully articulated buildings set in a natural, landscaped campus.”1 But hurry if you want to take a good look at it; it is slated to be torn down soon.
Long before it adopted a lizard as its mascot or had cavemen serving as spokespeople, the Government Employees Insurance Company began modestly in Texas in 1936. Leo Goodwin, who had worked for years in the insurance industry, started the firm with two innovative ideas: (1) directly market auto insurance to customers rather than using agents and (2) target federal employees and military officers—a group that had fewer accidents than other drivers. The following year, he and his wife Lillian moved their operation to Washington, DC to be closer to their customer base. But it wasn’t until investment banker Lorimer Davidson became involved in 1948 that the company began rapidly expanding. Davidson’s connections brought substantial new investment and energy. One investor was David Lloyd Kreeger, a lawyer who initially served as the company’s general counsel. Kreeger became more and more involved in the company as it grew, eventually taking over as its chief executive officer. In the process he earned a fortune that he spent lavishly as a patron of the arts. His 1963 home on Foxhall Road, designed by Phillip Johnson, is now the Kreeger Museum. Lorimer Davidson’s connections also led to Warren Buffett, who first purchased stock in GEICO in 1951. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., would eventually absorb GEICO as a fully owned subsidiary.
In 1950, the company moved into a six-floor office building at 14th and L Streets NW that it had acquired from the Federal Housing Administration. It seemed plenty big, but GEICO was growing by leaps and bounds and soon needed something much larger. That is when it acquired the 26-acre tract along the south side of Willard Avenue in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and began planning its new office park. Even as it planned the new building, the company kept growing. With construction just beginning in 1958, the building was expanded by more than a third.2
Historian Louise Mozingo coined the term “pastoral capitalism” to refer to the mid 20th century trend of large corporations fleeing cramped and congested city centers for sprawling suburban parks. Employees who used to ride streetcars and buses to downtown jobs happily drove their cars from their suburban homes to these new office parks, turning their backs on the city. According to Mozingo, benefits for large corporations included cheaper, more spacious quarters; better employee productivity and retention; and an opportunity to foster a corporate image conveying benevolence, strength, and futuristic vision.3
GEICO’s award-winning Operations Building—top management remained in downtown DC—was a spiffy corporate gem when it opened in 1959. Covering 276,000 square feet and accommodating 1,140 employees, the building is as long as two football fields. The four-story building’s brown and beige office segments, faced with textured, porcelain-enameled panels, are juxtaposed with taller opaque blocks that break up the horizontality and allow for future expansion.4 In 1964, a seven-story tower was added at the front of the building on Willard Avenue. Parking for hundreds of cars was provided in vast underground and surface lots.
This was all the work of accomplished designer Vincent Kling, who was born in East Orange, New Jersey, and earned his architecture degree from Columbia University. By the 1960s, Kling headed the largest architectural firm in Philadelphia. He is probably best known for the Penn Center project he designed in downtown Philadelphia in the 1950s.
GEICO went through a dramatically rough patch in the 1970s as inflation, the rise of no-fault liability laws, and costlier accidents turned profits into losses. GEICO stock, trading at $61 in 1972, went for just $7 in 1975. Patient investors, including Warren Buffett, who bought up more than a million shares at around $3 each, helped bring the company back on course.5 By the mid 1990s, when Berkshire Hathaway absorbed GEICO as a wholly owned subsidiary, its leaders were already thinking about dumping the Chevy Chase office park.
In 1999, Montgomery County approved a future plan for the site that envisioned demolishing the GEICO building and replacing it with a mix of housing and office space. Nothing happened for another 25 years. Then, in February 2025, GEICO announced it would finally vacate the Chevy Chase site, moving to a high-rise building in nearby downtown Bethesda. The old office park “is no longer suitable for our needs, and we need a more modern, right-sized workspace for our associates,” said a politely worded company email quoted in Bethesda magazine. Within months the county amended its 1999 plan to provide for housing only—no office space—as most everyone now wanted. This spring, developer EYA submitted plans for hundreds of townhomes and apartments to fill the building footprint as well as the surrounding open spaces. (A community park at the rear of the property will remain.)6
There seems not to have been much thought of preserving and reusing the building. It’s interesting to reflect on how rapidly structures like this have lost favor. Emily Badger has written in the New York Times on the subject, pointing to the pandemic as a decisive factor. Employees looking for quiet and isolation to focus on their jobs now just work from home. Office buildings, in contrast, need to be centrally located and nurture close personal interaction. As Badger puts it, “Offices meant to evoke and blend in among suburban homes have been cannibalized by actual homes.” The trend also reflects an inevitable change in tastes. Majestic buildings that were once sleek and fashionable are now historical relics, taking up more room than they’re worth. Time for a redo.
“Montgomery Modern: GEICO Headquarters (1959),” Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
“Work on GEICO Building Resumed,” Washington Post, May 25, 1958, C9.
Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism:A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (MIT Press, 2011).
Warren J. Cox, et al., AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., 2nd ed., 1974, page 201; “GEICO to Occupy New Office Building on Nov. 30,” Washington Post, Nov. 22, 1959, C13.
Martha M. Hamilton, “GEICO Went From Brink To the Bank,” Washington Post, Aug. 26, 1995, A8.
“The Residential Redevelopment Of The GEICO Headquarters Moves Forward,” UrbanTurf, Apr. 8, 2026.
nice piece, but I think the lizard is a gecko. 😊
Another excellent article, thank you John! I reached out to GEICO to ask them if I could shoot a video of the building before it was demolished and they declined. I was very disappointed!