Maryland Historical Trust Inventory No. TBD Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties Form
1. Name of Property (indicate preferred name) historic Suburban Trust Company Building other Bank of America Building
2. Location
street and number 255 North Washington Street not for publication city, town Rockville, Maryland vicinity county Montgomery
3. Owner of Property (give names and mailing addresses of all owners) name Rockville Town Center LLC street and number 8081 Wolf Trap Rd., Suite 300 telephone city, town Vienna state Virginia zip code 22182 4. Location of Legal Description courthouse, registry of deeds, etc Montgomery County Judicial Center liber 19905 folio 571 city, town Rockville, MD tax map GR 32 tax parcel NO 12 tax ID number
5. Primary Location of Additional Data Contributing Resource in National Register District Contributing Resource in Local Historic District Determined Eligible for the National Register/Maryland Register Determined Ineligible for the National Register/Maryland Register Recorded by HABS/HAER Historic Structure Report or Research Report at MHT X Other: Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation 6. Classification
Category Ownership Current Function Resource Count district public agriculture landscape Contributing Noncontributing x building(s) x private x commerce/trade recreation/culture 1 buildings structure both defense religion sites site domestic social structures object education transportation objects funerary work in progress 1 Total government unknown health care vacant/not in use Number of Contributing Resources industry other: previously listed in the Inventory 0
7. Description Inventory No. TBD
Condition
excellent deteriorated x good ruins fair altered
Prepare both a one paragraph summary and a comprehensive description of the resource and its various elements as it exists today.
The Suburban Trust Company bank and office building (today Bank of America building) occupies a prominent corner on North Washington Street, one of Rockville’s main thoroughfares. The building is adjacent to Town Center, an area of recent large-scale redevelopment activity. Completed in 1965, the Suburban Trust building was designed by Washington architect Arthur L. Anderson (1893 -1980) and is strongly reminiscent of contemporaneous works by master architect Edward Durell Stone, a leading exponent of the New Formalist architectural style. Constructed of steel, brick, and concrete block, the five-story building is tripartite in massing and features a distinctive honeycomb pattern of elongated windows and alternating porcelain-enameled steel panels. The building carries a steel portico along the first floor that extends along the main façade southward towards the drive-through teller stations which are original features of Anderson’s design. One of Rockville’s most distinctive modernist designs, the Suburban Trust building has provided banking services and professional office space to the Rockville community since the mid- 1960s.
Arthur L. Anderson, Suburban Trust Company bank and office building, Rockville (1965) Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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Comprehensive Description:
The five-story Suburban Trust building faces west onto North Washington Street at the northeast corner of Beall Avenue in an area of Rockville that is today known as Town Center. The building has a tripartite massing and is constructed of steel, reinforced concrete, and brick masonry. Its most distinctive features are rectangular curtain walls covering the facades of the upper four stories in a "honeycomb" steel and aluminum grid with alternating elongated window panes and rose and white panels. The rose-colored panels are porcelain enameled steel and complement the reddish-brown brick masonry used throughout the building. A half-story flat-roofed brick monitor with ventilation panels and fixed-pane windows sits atop the central portion of the building's flat roofline, presumably housing the service core.
Rectangular in plan and massing, the building's upper four stories are supported by an irregularly- shaped first floor that carries a cantilevered portico wrapping the north and west facades. The portico extends approximately twenty feet to the south, sheltering exterior drive-through teller stations, architectural features of Anderson's original design. Square steel pilotis clad in porcelain are placed at regular intervals around the building to help support the mass and provide a horizontal balance to the portico and linear cornice on the fifth story and roofline monitor.
The principal entrance, framed by steel I-beams and flanked by ornamental grill of concrete blocks, is located on the central portion of the west façade; secondary entrances are placed on the eastern (rear) portion. The lobby area, which leads to an elevator, is located within the main entrance and is clad in veined white marble panels. An interior stairway is located within the eastern part of the building and is accessible from the rear and side parking lots to the east and north sections of the site. Banking offices occupy the northern section of the first floor and feature columns of veined white marble. Some interior modifications to the bank interior, including an acoustic drop ceiling, are evident. Office suites are located in the upper four stories.
The exterior honeycomb curtain walls are framed by red brick, laid in common bond that runs horizontally behind the grid and forms vertical corner transitions. The alternating pattern of solids and voids and the use of colored panels create a lively ornamental surface pattern characteristic of 1960s Formalist architecture. Alternating brick patterns on the south and west facades reiterate the honeycomb motif of the curtain walls above. The first floor features commercial storefront windows that wrap the western and northern facades. A thin band of Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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red brick, laid in common bond, visually anchors the building to its foundation and provides an additional horizontal design element.
The building is in good condition, unaltered, and an established and familiar feature of Rockville’s downtown.
Detail of concrete block exterior grill, Suburban Trust Company bank and office building, 1965.
8. Significance Inventory No. Period Areas of Significance Check and justify below
1600-1699 agriculture economics health/medicine performing arts 1700-1799 archeology education industry philosophy 1800-1899 X architecture engineering invention politics/government X 1900-1999 art entertainment/ landscape architecture religion 2000- X commerce recreation X law science communications ethnic heritage literature X social history community planning exploration/ maritime history transportation conservation settlement military X other: local history
Specific dates 1965 Architect/Builder Arthur L. Anderson
Construction dates 1963-1965
Evaluation for:
National Register Maryland Register x not evaluated
Prepare a one-paragraph summary statement of significance addressing applicable criteria, followed by a narrative discussion of the history of the resource and its context. (For compliance projects, complete evaluation on a DOE Form – see manual.)
The Suburban Trust building is an architecturally distinctive and historically significant property of Rockville’s recent past. It was planned and completed in the early 1960s, coinciding with the City’s initiatives for urban renewal of the downtown area. Designed by award-winning architect, Arthur L. Anderson, the Suburban Trust building expresses the progressive energy and far- sightedness of a community embarking on massive redevelopment of its commercial and government center. The Suburban Trust building also represents both the ambitions and achievements of the Suburban Trust Company, once the most powerful and influential bank in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region during the mid-twentieth century, the era of its most rapid suburban growth. Equally significant, the Suburban Trust building housed the law offices of Vivian V. Simpson, one of Maryland and Montgomery County’s most honored and distinguished lawyers and an emblem of women’s pioneering achievements in law and public service. One of Rockville’s most iconic structures, the Suburban Trust building has attracted architectural enthusiasts, scholars, and historians. In February 2009, Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation co-sponsored a three-day charrette with faculty and graduate students from the University of Maryland School of Architecture to explore options for adaptive use of the building and to propose alternatives to demolition. Among recommended uses are the creation of a Rockville Science Center and use of the entry plaza as a venue for the Rockville Farmer’s Market.
Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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Comprehensive historical description
1. Architectural Design
The Suburban Trust building is one of Rockville’s most distinctive modernist designs. Anderson's composition is strongly reminiscent of contemporaneous works by Edward Durell Stone, whose designs for the American Embassies in London and New Delhi (1958), Lincoln Center in New York (1962) and the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D.C. (1963) are recognized as landmarks of New Formalism, a style pioneered in the late 1950s by Stone, Eero Saarinen (U.S. Embassy, Oslo, Norway; 1960), AC Martin Partners (Department of Water and Power, Los Angeles, 1965), and other master architects who introduced monumental form, symmetry, structurally integrated ornamentation (e.g., grillwork), and classically-inspired design principles into the modernist canon.1 In the Suburban Trust building, Anderson combined the use of urban scale, tripartite massing, a uniform construction grid, modern classical form, and ornamental details in his interpretation of this style.
Arthur L. Anderson (1893-1980), a native of Boston, came to the Washington, D.C. area in the 1930s. According to his obituary, Anderson was a self-taught architect who learned drafting as a young man and worked in an architectural firm in Washington before opening his own firm, Arthur L. Anderson and Associates, in 1944; he joined the American Institutes of Architects in 1946.2 During his long career, he designed residential, institutional, and commercial properties throughout the Washington metropolitan area, including: apartment buildings (Walter Reed Gardens, Arlington, VA, 1946; Rock Creek Garden Apartments, Alexandria, VA, 1950s), automobile dealerships (Grady Motors, Bethesda, MD, 1948; Akers Oldsmobile Cadillac, Alexandria, VA, 1948); and retail facilities (Colony House furniture store, Arlington, VA, 1957).
1 For a discussion of the New Formalism, see Marcus Whiffen, “The New Formalism” in American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969, 1981), 256-262. Stone is known for his design of Lincoln Center (1962), the American Embassy in New Delhi (1958), the National Geographic Society Headquarters (1963) and the Kennedy Center in Washington (1971), among many others. See Edward Durell Stone, The Evolution of an Architect (New York: Horizon Press, 1962); Teresa Grimes, "New Formalism," Historic American Buildings Survey; Robert H. Estabrook, "New Row Buffets London Embassy," The Washington Post, 22 April 1962, E:2; Christopher Gray, Edward Durell Stone and The Gallery of Modern Art, at 2 Columbus Circle; An Architect Who Looked Both Forward and Back," The New York Times, 27 October 2003; Phillip Lopata, et al., "What Should We Do With 2 Columbus Circle?" Preservation (November-December 2004): 21-25. 2 "Arthur Anderson, 87, Dies, Wheaton Plaza Architect," The Washington Post, 26 June 1980, C:5. In addition to his work on Wheaton Plaza, Anderson's obituary credits him with the design for the clubhouse at Rosecroft Raceway. In 1957, the Progressive Citizens Association of Georgetown awarded Anderson with a prize for a building project. See "Georgetown Construction Design Cited," The Washington Post, 14 May 1957, B:2. Anderson’s other projects in the Rockville area include the Aspen Hill Elementary School and Carl Sandburg Elementary School (1962). Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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Anderson’s medical buildings include the now-demolished Eig Building (Silver Spring, MD, 1951) and the Forest Glen Medical Center (1968) on Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, MD.3
Early in his career, Anderson built single-family homes, some on speculation and others for private clients, and in 1948, he designed his own home on Highland Drive in the Woodside Park neighborhood of Silver Spring. Typically, these projects combined the use of a traditional Colonial exterior with contemporary interior design and modern conveniences and technology. Anderson completed several shopping centers, including the Fillmore Gardens Shopping Center in Arlington, VA (1947) and the Giant Food and Woodward & Lothrop store at Wheaton Plaza (1956 and 1958, respectively). In the late 1940s, Anderson designed the grandstand and clubhouse for a horse racing track in Oxon Hill, MD (today Rosecroft Raceway). He also designed the three-story Georgian Revival style funeral home for Joseph Gawler’s Sons when the firm relocated from Pennsylvania Avenue to Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest D.C. in 1962. One year later in 1963, the new facility prepared President John F. Kennedy’s body for burial in Arlington National Cemetery, underscoring Gawler’s long-standing reputation as a preeminent funeral service for national and foreign dignitaries, members of Congress, military leaders, and Supreme Court Justices.4
Anderson produced a number of noteworthy modernist school buildings in Montgomery County, beginning in 1959 with elementary schools in Wheaton (Forest Knolls, the first County school for disabled children) and Aspen Hill. In addition to Brookhaven Elementary School (1961) and Farmland Elementary School in Rockville (1963), Anderson designed the sleek Wright-inspired Carl Sandburg Elementary School in the Twinbrook neighborhood of Rockville (1962), today known as the Carl Sandburg Learning Center.
The Suburban Trust Company commissioned several major projects from Anderson, beginning in 1956 with the Administration Building on New Hampshire Avenue in Hyattsville/Takoma Park. According to The Washington Post, the three-story building included a branch bank and facilities
3 "More Apartments Planned for Arlington," The Washington Post, 6 July 1947, C:6; "Peoples Drug Moving to New Offices," The Washington Post, 6 September 1959, A:21; "Preview Set Today for Giant Store," The Washington Post, 16 September 1956, C:15; "Woodward & Lothrop Plans Wheaton Branch," The Washington Post, 27 March 1958, B:8; Oliver S. Goodman, "Woodies Lists More Store Details," "Woodward & Lothrop's New Store in Wheaton Plaza," The Washington Post, 12 September 1958, C:22; "Shop Center To Be Served By Tunnel," The Washington Post, 30 November 1958, C:13; "Wheaton Plaza Plans Spring Opening," The Washington Post, 7 November 1959, B:11; Max A. van Balgooy, “Timeline: Arthur Leonard Anderson, Architect,” August 2013, 1-3. 4 Van Balgooy, “Timeline,” 6; “Gawler’s Plans $1 Million Home,” The Washington Post, 18 June 1961, C:11. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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for bookkeeping, accounting, executive office space, and other administrative functions.5 Two years later, Anderson designed a bank/office building for Suburban Trust Company in Wheaton located at University Boulevard and Grandin Avenue (currently owned by Bank of America). The handsome three-story International Style building was constructed of reinforced concrete and glass with porcelain panels and glazed brick.6 Anderson was hired in 1963 to design the new Rockville branch for Suburban Trust, a project he completed in 1965, the same year he retired from the practice of architecture.7 The firm was acquired by William Fahey, Anderson’s long-time associate.8
Anderson enjoyed a long and distinguished career, contributing many important projects to the architectural character of Washington’s ever-growing suburban development. His work demonstrates fluency and expertise in a variety of architectural styles, from the neo-classical traditionalism of Joseph Gawler’s Sons Funeral Home to the International Style of the Wheaton Suburban Trust building and sleek efficiency of modernist school buildings. His New Formalist design for Rockville’s Suburban Trust building indicates keen awareness of the stylistic innovations of the period, bringing an elite aesthetic movement to Rockville's mid-century landscape and keeping pace with the tempo of the Late Modernism.
2. Banking and Economics
The Suburban Trust building at 255 North Washington Street in Rockville represents the achievements and ambitions of the Suburban Trust Company (STC), the most powerful and influential bank in the mid-twentieth century in the Maryland counties surrounding Washington D.C. The Suburban Trust bank and office building exemplifies the economic heritage of the City of Rockville and is an established architectural feature of downtown during the postwar suburban boom of the 1950s and 1960s.
Suburban Trust Company was established in 1951, following the merger of Suburban National Bank of Silver Spring and Prince Georges Bank and Trust Company. By 1960, Suburban Trust was the fourth largest bank in the metropolitan area and the largest in Maryland outside Baltimore.9 The suburbanization of banking brought increased competition, as mergers impacted
5 Van Balgooy, “Timeline,” 4; “Suburban Trust Occupies New $1 Million Building,” The Washington Post, 21 December 1956, A:22. 6 Van Balgooy, “Timeline,” 7. 7 “Imposing New Branch Building in Area,” Washington Post, 6 February 1965, E12. 8 Sketch of Anderson's design for Wheaton Suburban Trust Building, The Washington Post, 18 June 1958, A:22. 9 Frank C. Porter, "Suburban Trust Completes Merger," The Washington Post, 19 August 1960, A:18; Fred L. Lutes, "Suburban Trust is Fourth Largest in Washington Area," Sentinel, 25 August 1960, 5; Oliver S. Goodman, "Suburban Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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older and smaller banks in Rockville and elsewhere. The 1962 merger of Farmers Banking and Trust Company of Rockville and First National Bank of Baltimore coincided with Suburban's plans for a Rockville branch. According to The Washington Post, it also signaled a fortuitous departure from a long-standing unwritten agreement that banks in Baltimore and the Washington area would refrain from "invasions" of their respective geographic boundaries. The merger not only prompted STC to expedite construction of its Rockville branch but also to develop initiatives for expanding operations into Howard County, previously considered Baltimore's "natural domain."10
Suburban Trust Company came to Rockville in August 1962, with the opening of a temporary branch office at 9 North Washington Street.11 A parcel of land for a permanent facility had been purchased in July 1962, and a ground-breaking ceremony for the new building was held in December 1963, with Rockville Mayor Frank Ecker and County Council President John A. Floyd in attendance.12 When completed in February 1965, the new $1 million-dollar facility was Suburban's largest branch bank, surpassing its Wheaton branch office designed by Arthur Anderson in 1958.13
The Suburban Trust Company traces its founding to the Prince Georges Bank and Trust Company in Hyattsville in 1915. Fifty years later, that one bank had grown to branch banks throughout Montgomery and Prince Georges counties. With assets of $355 million, its holdings equaled all the other Maryland banks combined and was among the top ten percent of banks in the nation.
Trust Plans To Acquire Two More Banks," The Washington Post, 14 September 1960, B:12; "Suburban Trust Approves Financial Merger Plan," Sentinel, 15 September 1960, A:3; Oliver S. Goodman, "Net Up 23% at Suburban Trust Company," The Washington Post, 16 January 1963, B:12. See also J. Robert Sherwood, The Story of Suburban Trust Company – The Bank With Vision, The Newcomen Address, dealing with the history of Suburban Trust Company, was delivered at the “1967 Washington Dinner” of the Newcomen Society of North America, held at Washington, D.C., when Mr. J. Robert Sherwood was the guest of honor, on November 28, 1967. Published by The Newcomen Society in North America, New York, 1968; Jane C. Sween and William Ofutt, Montgomery County: Centuries of Change (Sun Valley CA: American Historical Press, 1991), 110. 10 Oliver Goodman, " 'Invasion' Disturbs Area Bank Circles," The Washington Post, 18 April 1962, C:5. 11 "Suburban Trust Gets OK For New Rockville Branch," Sentinel, 2 August 1962, A:8; "Suburban Trust Opens in Rockville," Sentinel, 23 August 1962, A:8; "New Bank Building," The Washington Post, 12 July 1963, B:6; "Suburban Expanding," Sentinel, 18 July 1963, B:10; John B. Saunders, "Hill and Kimmel Get Contract for New Suburban Branch," "New Bank to Rise on Site," Sentinel, 19 December 1963, A:12. 12 City of Rockville, Maryland, Urban Renewal Records: Furman, Summary of Sales Data, 1963. Box 1, item #22. [Peerless Rockville Collection] 13 "New Bank Building," The Washington Post, 12 July 1963, B:6; The Washington Post, 18 December 1963, B:10; The Washington Post, 18 June 1963, A:22; “Imposing New Branch Buildings in Area,” The Washington Post, 6 February 1965, E:12. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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Its Rockville branch bank was “by far [its] most ambitious branch building,” not only culminating STC’s vision of economic success, but also symbolizing the bank of the future.14
The growth of STC corresponded to both the growth in businesses and housing of the suburbs (which had swelled in the decades following World War II) and shifts in the bank industry due to the economic depression of the 1930s, consumer behavior, and data processing technology. Its growth is also due to the management and strategies of T. Howard Duckett, an attorney who believed that the county boundaries were “more political than economic.” His efforts to erase the line between Montgomery and Prince Georges counties to better coordinate and respond to suburban growth involved him in the three cross-county institutions that most significantly shaped and transformed the region:
1. In 1916, he helped establish the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission and served as its chairman from 1922 to 1939. 2. From 1927 to 1941, he served on the founding board of the Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission. 3. In 1951, he created the Suburban Trust Company and served as its chairman until he retired in 1965 at age 85.
Duckett had been on the board of the Prince Georges Bank since its founding in 1915 and in the 1940s had risen to the position of President. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Suburban National Bank, a similarly-sized bank in Montgomery County. Recognizing the opportunities available to a larger bank in a growing area, he merged the two institutions in 1951 to become the Suburban Trust Company, making it the sixth largest bank in the Washington area.15 During his tenure on the board of directors from 1915 to 1965, T. Howard Duckett spurred a long generation of construction, mergers, and acquisitions that continually added banks, customers, and assets.16
With World War II, the region surrounding Washington, D.C. attracted science, engineering, research, and management consulting businesses who needed to be close to their biggest customer, the federal government. Attractive jobs arose in the suburbs because the federal government moved various agencies outside the District as a protection against an attack on the
14 William G. Dooly, Fifty Years of Suburban Banking (Hyattsville: Suburban Trust Co., 1965), 114. 15 Fifty Years of Suburban Banking, 141. 16 “Duckett, 85, Retires; Richards New Chairman,” Washington Post, 6 October 1965, B7; “T. Howard Duckett, 87, Dies,” Washington Post, 4 December 1967, B10; “A Sketch of the Chairman” in Fifty Years of Suburban Banking, 143- 7. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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nation’s capital. In Montgomery County, this began when the National Institute of Health and the National Naval Medical Center were both established in Bethesda in the late 1930s, which was followed by such other agencies such as the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in White Oak in 1944 and the Atomic Energy Commission in Germantown in 1958. Farms in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties were sold for housing developments and industrial parks to accommodate (and profit from) this growth. As a result, the population soared in Montgomery County during the 1950s from 164,401 to 340,928 persons, which then created demand for services such as shopping as well as high-speed freeways, such as Interstate 495 (Beltway), which was completed in 1964. Even more important for banks, the median household income for Montgomery County was $9,317, the highest of the nation’s 3,000 counties.17
The Suburban Trust Company seized this opportunity by acquiring and building banks in key locations, such as Silver Spring, Wheaton, Germantown, and eventually Rockville in the 1960s. STC was a product of many mergers and it continued this strategy throughout its existence. In 1960, it made its biggest acquisitions through mergers with the Bank of Maryland, the Maryland State Bank of Montgomery County, and Farmers and Merchants Bank of Upper Marlboro. These mergers established footholds in southern and northern Montgomery County but a crucial location was missing—Rockville—the county seat and the second largest city in Maryland.18 Rockville was served by several banks in the 1950s, but they focused on walk-in customers seeking commercial and business loans. STC, on the other hand, recognized the opportunities in consumer loans for automobiles and housing, especially with the Federal Housing Administration’s revision of housing laws that introduced the thirty-year mortgage loan and encouraged the development of large housing tracts in the county, such as Twinbrook. With the completion of a three-story headquarters in 1956 in Hyattsville where the two counties and District of Columbia meet, they marched their new buildings towards Rockville. In 1959, STC opened a four-story bank in Wheaton (near the new Wheaton Plaza shopping mall, one of the largest in the nation), then opened a branch bank at 12210 Veirs Mill Road (near Randolph Road) and finally a five-story bank in Rockville in 1965. Because Rockville was demolishing forty acres of its downtown in the 1960s for redevelopment, Suburban Trust Company sited its building on the edge of the future downtown on Washington Street, which was the main street of Rockville for more than a century.19
17 Fifty Years of Suburban Banking, 118. 18 Fifty Years of Suburban Banking, 96-98. 19 STC purchased about three acres of land at Washington Street and Beall Avenue in 1962 which was adjacent to the redeveloping downtown, future Rockville Volunteer Fire Station #3 (built 1966), and the planned Rockville Mall (opened in 1972). Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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The STC proudly proclaimed that the Rockville bank was “by far [its] most ambitious branch building,” requiring three years of planning and $1.4 million in design and construction. When it was completed in 1965, the five-story, air-conditioned building provided 6,000 square feet of banking space on the first floor and 8,000 square feet of leased office space on each of the four upper floors, served by two high-speed elevators. In addition, it provided three drive-in windows and parking for a hundred cars.20 It not only dominated Rockville’s downtown but was probably the largest bank building in Montgomery County, a strategy of architectural symbolism that mimics other business leaders across the United States, such as Woolworth in New York (1913), PSFS in Philadelphia (1932), Sears in Chicago (1973), and U.S. Bank in Los Angeles (1989).
At a Rockville Chamber of Commerce meeting in 1965, STC’s President Robert Sherwood stated that, “We feel that we now have one of the finest banking structures among banking institutions in the Maryland segment of the Washington-Metropolitan area. I have been informed that there are approximately 37,000 residents in the Rockville area, and by 1980 predictions call for a population of 75,000. We have built not just for today’s banking, but for banking in the future.”21
Completion of Suburban Trust building in Rockville in 1965 happened simultaneously with the demolition of the central business district and a transformation of the look and feel of Rockville from town to city. The five-story Modernist building was not only the largest bank constructed by Suburban Trust Company, it was part of an architectural revolution in Rockville. Figure 1. Suburban Trust Company Until the 1950s, Rockville’s skyline mostly consisted of one- and building in Rockville in the 1970s. two-story buildings occasionally punctuated by towers and Photo by Eileen McGuckian. steeples, the most significant of which was the 1891 Red Brick Courthouse built on a high point in downtown. This changed in 1953 with the addition of the five- story County Office Building on Maryland Avenue, and each succeeding decade brought faster changes in architectural styles, bigger buildings, and a higher skyline: Rockville City Hall in 1960, the Suburban Trust building in 1965, the Americana Centre in 1972, the eighteen-story Unibank Building (51 Monroe) in 1976, and the Montgomery County Judicial Center and Executive Office Building in 1982.
These new buildings not only signaled that Rockville after 1950 was no longer dominated by farms, country estates, and churches, but by business, government, and much denser residential housing. The design of these buildings also signaled a change in attitude. Rather than looking to
20 Fifty Years of Suburban Banking, 114. 21 Fifty Years of Suburban Banking, 114-115. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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the past for inspiration, such as Classical, Gothic, or Colonial styles, they looked to the future, adopting Modernism with its stylized ornament, clean lines and surfaces, and new materials, as well as being oriented to the automobile, the quintessential symbol of suburban living. Banks in particular needed to rethink their architecture after the depression of the 1930s. As noted by historian Charles Belfourne:
“The postwar prosperity would change banking forever. The trend toward consumer banking that had begun in the 1920s and 1930s was complete by the late 1940s. The middle class and its spending power were finally recognized, supplanting the bias toward commercial customers that had begun with the Bank of North America. Bankers realized that wage earners needed mortgages (which now had easy-to-afford 30-year terms), loans for cars and appliances, and money to start businesses and make retirement plans. Still stung by the hatred of bankers in the depths of the Depression, the banking industry readily embraced the glass and steel modernism that had taken over American architecture. It represented a bright new future for banking (and it also seemed cheaper than classical architecture).”22
Figure 2. Left: Suburban Trust Company headquarters in Hyattsville (1956). Center: Wheaton branch bank (1959). Right: Rockville branch bank (1965).
Indeed, the Suburban Trust Company followed this national pattern in its buildings, especially in Rockville. Its 1956 headquarters in Hyattsville and 1959 Wheaton bank abandoned classical architecture for Streamline Moderne and International styles. The Rockville bank was its most elaborate, the building pushed back from the street and finished on all four sides in the style of New Formalism to increase its visual impact. The first floor was devoted to banking, with one half for walk-in customers and the other half for drive-in customers. The banking floor is open and transparent, its exterior glass walls exposing the vault, staff, and activities. Resting on this base, the office tower rises with an alternating grid of glossy rose and white porcelain-enameled steel panels trimmed with dozens of shiny aluminum ribs on all four sides.
22 Charles Belfourne. Monuments to Money: The Architecture of American Banks (North Carolina: McFarland, 2011), 244. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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These materials were carefully selected in conjunction with the architectural style because they were novel, transparent, corrosion resistant, or long-lasting—symbolizing the virtues of the Suburban Trust Bank and dramatically different from the banks of the previous generation. 23 STC retained local architect Arthur Anderson to design these three buildings, each time growing more confident in his designs and the Rockville building is among his most sophisticated achievements.24
The installation of three drive-in tellers and a large parking lot was in response to the car-oriented suburban consumer, especially women who “really are the people who control the nation’s pocketbook,” according to STC.25 Along with making banking more convenient and comfortable for women, in 1959 STC launched an annual Women’s Conference on Business in cooperation with the University of Maryland, hosting lectures on taxes, estate planning, and finance; fashion shows; and concerts.
Completion of its Rockville bank in 1965 made Suburban Trust Company the largest bank in Maryland outside of Baltimore and it was planning to spread statewide beyond the boundaries of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties. The previous ten years had been its most successful, with assets and deposits tripling and income reaching a record of $7.5 million in 1966 against $1.3 million in 1956.26
Suburban Trust Company continued its success throughout the 1960s, operating in Rockville and other communities well into the 1980s. Like other consumer-based institutions, however, STC was impacted by a series of economic recessions, sweeping changes in federal and state banking regulations, and subsequent mega-mergers by large national banking corporations. In 1986, Suburban Trust Company was acquired by Sovran Financial Corporation, which through a series of mergers became NationsBank in 1991.27 In the late 1990s, NationsBank became Bank of America, the name that the property at 255 North Washington Street currently bears.28
23 Twentieth Century Building Materials edited by Thomas Jester (New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1995). 24 Anderson’s other notable building in Rockville is the Carl Sandburg Elementary School (1962). See also “Architects, Builders, and Developers” in Rockville’s Recent Past by Teresa Lachin (Peerless Rockville, 2012), 56-7. 25 Fifty Years of Suburban Banking, 112. 26 Goodman, S. Oliver, “Suburban Trust Co. May Go Statewide,” Washington Post, 30 April 1967, K1. 27 “La Plata Faction Kills Suburban Trust Merger,” Washington Post, 25 November 1964, C5; “Md. Suburban Bank Ousts Boatwright,” Washington Post, 13 May 1980, D7; “Mega-Merger Creates 11-State NationsBank,” Washington Post, 1 January 1992, D9. 28 Stephen A. Rhoades, "Bank Mergers and Industrywide Structure, 1980- 1994," Federal Reserve Bulletin. February 1996: 1-29. www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/staffstudies/1990-99/55/69.pdf. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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3. Women’s Rights and Achievements
The four upper floors of Rockville’s Suburban Trust building were leased as offices. The Suburban Trust building’s proximity to Montgomery County courts attracted legal professionals such as Clitus O. Boudreaux, Jr. and Charles Woodward.29 From 1966 to 1971, the bank’s fourth floor was home to the Rockville Library, which had occupied the Rockville Academy on South Adams Street since the late 1930s. In 1966, the Library’s 40,000-book collection was moved to rental space on the fourth floor of the Suburban Trust building, a temporary but much-needed arrangement for the Rockville community until a new purpose-built Library was completed in 1972.
Two original tenants included award-winning Rockville architect John H. Sullivan and one of Montgomery County’s most respected and well-known law firms Simpson and Simpson. Sullivan designed the Elwood P. Smith Center (1959), the County Federal Savings and Loan building (1962), the Tenley Building (1964), the Rockville Municipal Swim Center (1968), the Humble Car Care Center (1970), and projects for DANAC, Hewlett-Packard, Boland Trane, among other noteworthy clients.
When Vivian and Joseph Simpson were displaced from their offices on Perry Street during urban renewal, they hired John Sullivan to design the interior configuration of their fifth floor corner office suite in the new Suburban Trust building.30 Joseph Simpson died in 1976 and Vivian continued her practice in the Suburban Trust building until her retirement in the early 1980s. Her former law partner and successor, John Noble, occupied the office suite until May 2006, keeping artifacts, mementos, and photographs of Ms. Simpson in commemoration of her illustrious career.31
Vivian V. Simpson (1903-1984) was an exceptional woman whose legal and professional career spanned much of the twentieth century. Her story illustrates how one woman repeatedly broke barriers for women to succeed in law and politics in Rockville, Montgomery County, and Maryland. Simpson’s many distinctions include first woman lawyer in Montgomery County (1928), first female attorney for the Board of Montgomery County Commissioners (1938), first woman to serve
29 Rockville city directories, 1965-70. 30 John H. Sullivan, Jr., interview of May 1, 2006, Potomac, MD. For information on the Simpsons’ law offices, see Elizabeth Tennery, “Remembering Rockville” in Bar Association of Montgomery County, Centennial Pictorial: 100 Years of Legal Tradition, 1894-1994 (1994), 48-49. 31 Judge Joseph M. Mathias, “Women Become Lawyers,” in Centennial Pictorial (1994), 77-80; John Noble, “Vivian Simpson Wasn’t Just a Lady Lawyer,” Sentinel, 3 September 1987, 13, 28; Maureen Dowd, “The Doyenne of Montgomery Lawyers,” Washington Star, undated, courtesy John Noble; John Noble, interview of April 20, 2006, Rockville, MD. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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on the Maryland Industrial Accident Commission (1940-1947), first female elected president of the Montgomery County Bar Association (1949) and first woman Secretary of State for Maryland (1949-51).32
Simpson was born in 1903 to Laura and Joseph Simpson. Her father, a merchant, moved the family from Virginia to Takoma Park, MD, where Vivian and her brother Joseph grew up.33 In 1921, Simpson enrolled in the University of Maryland where women were still a relatively new part of the campus. It was only five years after the first woman had been admitted and by 1922 only ninety-three women attended the University.34 She excelled in her studies but challenged university rules for women that did not apply to men, such as curfews and permission to leave campus. When Simpson openly complained about discrimination, the University refused to admit her the following year. She sued the University and won her case but it was overturned on appeal. In the interim, she transferred to George Washington University, graduated from its School of Law with high honors, and received the Order of the Coif, an honor for academic achievement.35
Simpson was admitted to the Maryland Bar Association in 1928 and opened a solo law practice the same year in Town Hall in Rockville (now demolished), thus becoming the first woman lawyer in Montgomery County and one of only a small number of women lawyers nationwide (2%).36 In addition to a successful law practice, Simpson was active in professional circles and served on County and State boards and commissions. She was the first woman president of the Montgomery County Bar Association at a time when women held a mere five of 82 memberships. In 1949, she was appointed the first woman Secretary of State of Maryland— a distinction
32 Mary Katherine Scheeler, “Vivian V. Simpson, Practicing Lawyer,” in Notable Maryland Women (Cambridge, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1977), 348-51; “Vivian Simpson to Take Oath as Md. State Secretary Dec. 15,” The Washington Post, 5 December 1949, 1. 33 Notable Maryland Women, 348. 34 “Vivian V. Simpson (1903-1987),” http://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/ 013400/013450/html/13450extbio.html (accessed 20 March 2013). 35 Notable Maryland Women, 348-349; “Miss Simpson of Annapolis: A Sand Raiser,” The Washington Post, 28 April 1950, 27. 36 Simpson was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar without examination following admittance to the Maryland Bar because of her high scholarship. Notable Maryland Women, 349; “Vignettes of County Women,” Bethesda Journal, 23 August 1940. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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underscored by the declaration of a one-day holiday for Montgomery County Courts in honor of Simpson’s swearing-in ceremony.37
When Vivian and her younger brother Joseph were displaced from their office on Perry Street (now demolished) during urban renewal in the 1960s, Vivian was at the height of her career.38 “Simpson and Simpson” moved their law firm to the top floor of the newly built Suburban Trust building and hired architect John H. Sullivan, Jr. to design their corner office suite. For Vivian and her brother, “It was a big deal to move into the Suburban Trust building. The building was modern, fancy, and bigger than their previous office above the fire station. It meant they were moving up. . . . They were proud to be in the building.”39 The Simpsons’ choice to relocate in the Suburban Trust building clearly demonstrated Vivian’s status as a successful lawyer and member of the community.
Figure 3: Vivian Simpson's three Rockville offices (1928-1980). Left: Town Hall (demolished). Center: Rockville Volunteer Fire Station (demolished). Right: Top floor of the Suburban Trust Company building (1965).
Even after Joseph Simpson died in 1976, Vivian continued to practice law in the Suburban Trust building until her retirement in 1980. Her appointments and countless awards and honors she received throughout her career and posthumously include Vice-Chair of the Commission to Study Workman’s Compensation Laws of Maryland (1948); George Washington School of Law Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award (1950); Vice-President of the Maryland State Bar Association (1958-59); member of the Judicial Appointments Committee (1975-1977); member of the American Bar Association and the American Judicature Society; George Washington Law Association Professional Achievement Award (1979) and inclusion in Notable Maryland Women
37 Notable Maryland Women, 350. 38 Joseph B. Simpson joined his sister in 1934 and the law firm of Simpson and Simpson was born. “Joseph B. Simpson, Jr.,” The Post, Frederick, MD, 20 March 1976. 39 Christine V. Simpson, phone interview, May 2, 2013. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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(1979). She was also named posthumously one of twenty “Lawyers of the Century” by the Montgomery County Bar Association (1999), included in Women of Achievement in Maryland History (2002), and inducted into Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame (2004).40
40 Notable Maryland Women, 349-351; “Vivian V. Simpson (1903-1987).” Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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The Suburban Trust Company heralded its arrival to Rockville in this 1962 advertisement in the Sentinel, emphasizing its local ownership and management, the new building’s “most modern and beautiful” design, and testimonies of sixteen Rockville citizens. Montgomery County Sentinel, 23 August 1962, B:7.
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The Suburban Trust Company promoted new types of consumer loans (such as automobiles) that were targeted to new types of customers (women) as seen in this full-page advertisement in The Washington Post, March 1965. Maryland Historical Trust Maryland Inventory of Inventory No. TBD Historic Properties Form
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The architectural style of New Formalism as expressed by Edward Durell Stone, U.S. Embassy, New Delhi (1958)
The architectural style of New Formalism as expressed by Edward Durell Stone, National Geographic Society Headquarters, Washington, D.C. (1963)
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The architectural style of New Formalism as expressed by AC Martin and Associates, Department of Water and Power, Los Angeles (1965).
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Location of Suburban Trust Company banks in 1965. Rockville indicated in red; STC headquarters in green.
9. Major Bibliographical References Inventory No. City of Rockville Urban Renewal files; Montgomery County Sentinel and Washington Post newspapers; secondary sources on Edward Durell Stone including Marcus Whiffen, “The New Formalism” in American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969, 1981): 256-262. Interviews with John Noble and John H. Sullivan, Jr.; Bar Association of Montgomery County, Centennial Pictorial: 100 Years of Legal Tradition, 1894-1994 (1994); Mary Katherine Scheeler, “Vivian V. Simpson, Practicing Lawyer,” in Notable Maryland Women (Cambridge, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1977), 348-51.
10. Geographical Data
Acreage of surveyed property 98,122 S.F. Acreage of historical setting Quadrangle name Quadrangle scale:
Verbal boundary description and justification
Corner of North Washington Street and Beall Avenue
11. Form Prepared by
name/title Teresa B. Lachin, Ph.D., Max A. van Balgooy, Mary A. van Balgooy organization Peerless Rockville Historic Preservation, LTD. date January 2010; updated September 2013 street & number P.O. Box 4262 telephone 301-762-0096 city or town Rockville state Maryland 20849
The Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties was officially created by an Act of the Maryland Legislature to be found in the Annotated Code of Maryland, Article 41, Section 181 KA, 1974 supplement.
The survey and inventory are being prepared for information and record purposes only and do not constitute any infringement of individual property rights.
return to: Maryland Historical Trust DHCD/DHCP 100 Community Place Crownsville, MD 21032-2023 410-514-7600