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.

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 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.

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.

[3] Three years later he started the Kiplinger Washington Letter, a periodical aimed at providing commercial interests with insight into the workings of the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve.

[2][4] The company hired Leon Chatelain Jr., a local architect responsible for many residential, commercial, and church buildings in the area, to design the new structure.

[2] In 2011, the company moved to a Franklin Square location previously used by the Associated Press, and the following year the Editors Building was sold to a South Carolina–based developer.