They are called the Pentagon Barracks, and getting an apartment there from the House speaker is a choice perk for a state legislator.
Staying at one of the red brick apartments means living in a historic building while paying cheap rent a stone’s throw from the Capitol. The courtyard in the middle serves as the focal point for gatherings hosted nearly every night by interest groups and lobbyists during the legislative session.
The downside to living there: some of the ground-floor apartments flood during heavy rains, and frequent leaks damage walls and ceilings throughout the complex. Old pipes have been known to burst.
The state entity that oversees the Pentagon Barracks has been proposing for several years to undertake a complete renovation that would require each building’s residents to move elsewhere for a year or so until the work on that building is complete.
House Speaker Phillip DeVillier inspects water damage along an apartment wall on the interior of the Pentagon Barracks on Friday, March 7, 2025.
Now House Speaker Phillip DeVillier is exploring what could become a controversial idea, and it involves a quirk: A pentagon by definition has five sides, but the Pentagon Barracks consists of only four buildings.
DeVillier has asked state officials to explore adding a fifth building in the empty space and then move the legislators to the new building, one at a time, during the renovation. That way no one would have to move out. And at the end of the entire project, in perhaps five years, a speaker could give apartments to another 30-35 House members. (The Senate is small enough that all senators get housing at the Pentagon Barracks.)
The cost of the project? An estimated $10 million.
The money would come from an account controlled by the House, said DeVillier, R-Eunice. The little-known fund has $40 million in it.
The $10 million would be on top of the current estimated cost of $31 million to renovate the four existing buildings over several years. The full Legislature would have to vote to approve spending money for that out of its capital outlay budget, DeVillier said.
What is in the works?
His idea for a new structure within the Pentagon Barracks has yet to generate a public reaction because so few people know about it. Until a recent interview, he had not discussed it publicly.
The only previous mention of his idea came in a notice by the state construction office seeking applications for an architect to build 17,000 square feet of new legislative housing at the Pentagon Barracks. The deadline for those submissions was March 5.
“We’re in discussion about options how to repair a very historic building in Baton Rouge,” DeVillier said while sitting in the living room at the speaker’s apartment at the Pentagon. He added that building a fifth two-story structure “is another option that I want to share with people. The end goal is to fix the Pentagon Barracks.”
DeVillier said he would insist, if the idea moves forward, that the new building adhere to the design and structure of the four existing buildings.
The State Historic Preservation Office, under Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, would have to prepare a written review of the plans and issue a “certificate of appropriateness” before work could begin.
“Normally, we work with the agencies to get the request to where we are comfortable with it,” said Carrie Broussard, the office’s interim director, adding, “It would be very unusual to reject it.”
The lieutenant governor has an apartment at the Pentagon Barracks, and dozens of groups hold events there throughout the legislative session.
Taylor Barras, who serves as Gov. Jeff Landry’s chief financial officer as commissioner of the Division of Administration, knows the Pentagon Barracks well because he served as speaker from 2016-20.
He said an additional building could house about 18 apartments.
Barras, whose agency oversees the Pentagon Barracks, said the architect to be hired by the division will brief him and DeVillier at some point on what it would take to construct the fifth building. With that information, DeVillier can decide whether to continue advancing the idea, Barras said.
“We would want the building to complement the others in style, color and balconies,” he added.
A brick wall fronting River Road occupies the space where the new building would be built. A building was there originally 200 years ago but fell apart soon after construction and was never replaced.
Whitney Hoffmann Sayal, who is executive director of the Downtown Development District in Baton Rouge, said keeping its historic nature is important.
She said that if the state renovates the existing buildings without constructing the proposed new building, the downtown area and the Spanish Town neighborhood have space for the legislators who would have to move out.
Real estate listings show that any legislator who leaves the Pentagon Barracks would go from paying $200 to $500 per month at the state complex, utilities included, to $1,000 to $1,300 per month for a one-bedroom place in a nearby neighborhood.
Legislators typically defend the below-market rental rate at the Pentagon Barracks by noting they haven’t received a pay increase since 1980. But the decision to raise legislative pay is up to them.
A rich history of Louisiana politics
The Pentagon Barracks have a rich history.
They were built in a Greek Revival style from 1819 to 1822 and were then used as a garrison for troops and a storehouse for munitions for decades. Zachary Taylor was the post commander when he was elected the 12th president in 1848.
Confederate troops captured the site and held it for a year during the Civil War. The Pentagon Barracks later became an early home to LSU, and state legislators began living there in 1966, according to a 2024 report by Broussard’s office.
Today, 28 senators rent space in 22 apartments, and 29 House members rent in 21 apartments, according to legislative records.
Senators and representatives who live within 25 miles of Baton Rouge don’t get housing there.
Since all senators are taken care of, the competition for a spot at the Pentagon Barracks can be fierce in the 105-member House. It’s the House speaker who decides.
The speaker chooses who chairs legislative committees, and they typically also get a place at the Pentagon. That leaves only a few leftover spots.
Former state Rep. John Alario, who served two terms as speaker, said he rewarded his legislative allies.
“You can’t take politics out of politics,” he said recently.
Alario, who served 48 years in the Legislature, thought that former Rep. Troy Hebert, D-Jeanerette, was the only House member who had his apartment taken away, in a celebrated kerfuffle.
In 2004, Hebert was a member of then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s legislative team. She and then-Speaker Joe Salter had made him chair of the Insurance Committee and expected him to support them on tough votes.
But after Hebert refused to support a sales tax increase sought by Blanco, Salter removed Hebert as the committee chair. Hebert held a press conference the next day to blast Blanco.
Salter levied further punishment by moving Hebert’s parking space in the parking lot behind the Capitol from one next to the building to the farthest spot away.
But Salter didn’t eject him from the Pentagon Barracks, Hebert said recently.
“They took everything but that,” he said, though he couldn’t remember why not. “It was the holy grail of perks for legislators. When you join the speaker’s team, you get a chairmanship and an apartment. That’s part of the speaker’s package. Nobody else has been foolish enough to leave the speaker’s team other than me.”
Who gets to live there now?
DeVillier, known for his genial manner, has given apartments to legislators who are not always allies.
Rep. Danny McCormick is an independent-minded Republican from Oil City.
He got an apartment last year at the beginning of his second term. He had been paying about $1,200 per month to rent a small one-bedroom apartment a block from the Capitol. Now he pays $250 per month to share an apartment at the Pentagon Barracks with Rep. Chuck Owen, R-Rosepine.
“This speaker hasn’t held anything over our heads,” McCormick said. “He’s been quite fair.”
DeVillier even gave an apartment to Rep. Mandie Landry, a Democrat from New Orleans who is perhaps the House’s most liberal member.
She said she begged for one after depleting her campaign account in 2023 – legislators typically pay for housing in Baton Rouge with campaign funds.
Landry’s roommate is Rep. Beryl Amedee, and that prompts a lot of what’s-it-like-to-live-with-her questions because Amedee, R-Gray, heads the arch-conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Landry said they get along fine but mostly keep different schedules and avoid policy discussions.
“We talk about what’s going on in terms of scheduling,” she said.
The speaker in between Barras and DeVillier, former Rep. Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, tried in 2022 to transfer control of the Pentagon Barracks from the Division of Administration, which is under the governor, to the lieutenant governor, as he was gearing up to run for lieutenant governor. (He lost the election.)
But an Advocate news story disclosing that Schexnayder hired his son-in-law with $48,000 in taxpayer funds to renovate the speaker’s apartment killed his proposal.
Still, the Pentagon Barracks needs to be upgraded, DeVillier said recently, while showing off missing bricks and dark splotches on bricks throughout the complex showing water penetration.
“This is not a good sign,” he said as he sifted clay with his fingers in a spot where a brick had been.