The Washington Post reported today that the visionary real estate developer who hired Hickory Cluster Architect Charles M. Goodman, FAIA, to design major Tyson's Corner office parks and
The Commons of McLean multi-family apartment complex, WestGroup Management LLC founder Gerald T. Halpin, died August 14, 2017 at age 94. Like Reston's late founder Robert E. Simon, Jr. earlier at Hickory Cluster, Halpin commissioned Goodman to design notable works of commercial and residential Modern, and later Post-Modern, Architecture. Goodman's WestGroup buildings exhibited many of the same design elements used earlier at
River Park Mutual Homes in Washington, DC and then in Hickory Cluster, including flat roofs, multi-panel and bay window units, and jutting concrete beam ends later expressed as building mass.
Sadly, many if not most Goodman WestGroup buildings, including The Commons, have been or will be demolished as part of MetroRail Silver Line station area redevelopment to make way for newer, larger, and more profitable buildings. For more information, also see the HCA
Goodman Preservation webpage.
