The Amrita Club building is located at the southeast corner of Church (

US 44 U.S. Route 44 (US 44) is an east–west United States Numbered Highway that runs for through four states in the Northeastern United States. The western terminus is at US 209 and New York State Route 55 (NY 55) in Kerhonkson, ...

/ NY 55) and Market streets in Poughkeepsie,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It was once home to the club, one of the city's most prestigious gentlemen's organizations. In 1982 it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

(NRHP). The club was established in the late 19th century, but the building was not erected until the early 20th. It is one of only two brick Colonial Revival buildings in the city, and a sophisticated application of that style. Efforts to redevelop it in the early 21st century led to a protracted legal threats and negotiated settlement between the city and DTI (Decision Technologies International), a local software company which utilized the building as its corporate headquarters and development laboratory.

Building

The Amrita Club is in a very historic neighborhood. It is across the street from the Market Street Row, a group of houses that includes Poughkeepsie's oldest

frame A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

house, and immediately north of the Hasbrouck House, with the

Adriance Memorial Library The Adriance Memorial Library is located on Market Street in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. It is a stone building in the Classical Revival architectural style erected shortly at the end of the 19th century. In 1982 it was listed on the Na ...

a few houses down. It is across Church from the armory and across on the opposite corner is the Old Poughkeepsie YMCA. All of these are also listed on the Register. The building itself is a rectangular structure three stories tall, with raised

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

, and eight to nine

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

wide by three deep. Its double-doored, centrally-located entrance has a marble surround consisting of columns with sculpted

capitals Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

and a dentilled

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

. Below that, the doors themselves are topped with a

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

transom Transom may refer to: * Transom (architecture), a bar of wood or stone across the top of a door or window, or the window above such a bar * Transom (nautical), that part of the stern of a vessel where the two sides of its hull meet * Operation Tran ...

. The whole doorway is further topped with a keystone decorated with fleur-de-lis and ribbons on either side. On either flank of the entrance, the first floor features

French windows A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent materi ...

and

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

balconies, except for the smaller windows next to the door, trimmed with marble lintels and sills. A similar pattern is found on the larger windows of the third story. Above them is a dentilled cornice and

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

; two large chimneys rise from the

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

. The rear elevation features two porches with

Doric Doric may refer to: * Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece ** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians * Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture * Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode * Doric dialect (Scotland) * Doric ...

columns.

History

The club was founded in 1873 for local businessmen and professionals, with future neighbor and prominent local lawyer Frank Hasbrouck as one of the charter members. It excluded Catholics, African-Americans and Jews, and soon became synonymous with the city's elite. In 1905, local historian Edmund Platt described as "the first club of any importance". "Much of Poughkeepsie's growth was decided at the Amrita Club's dinner table", writes Carolyn Burke in her biography of Lee Miller, whose father was a member during her childhood. It met either in rented rooms or refurbished older buildings until it decided to build its own clubhouse in 1912. Designed by Alfred E. Barlow of

,''Engineering News'' 29 Feb. 1912: 115. New York. it cost the club $100,000 (equivalent to $ in ). Over the course of the 20th century, the club's influence waned as the city grew more diverse and its industrial base declined. In the 1980s it eventually disbanded and the building became city property. Unoccupied, it decayed until 1999 when Decision Technologies International (DTI), a software consulting firm based in nearby

Wappinger The Wappinger () were an Eastern Algonquian Munsee-speaking Native American people from what is now southern New York and western Connecticut. At the time of first contact in the 17th century they were primarily based in what is now Dutches ...

, reached a deal with the city to renovate the building and use it as its

headquarters Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the to ...

. The city committed $800,000 in urban-redevelopment

grants Grant or Grants may refer to: Places *Grant County (disambiguation) Australia * Grant, Queensland, a locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia United Kingdom *Castle Grant United States * Grant, Alabama *Grant, Inyo County, C ...

to help the company. In 2002, almost a year and a half after DTI had last withdrawn funds from the account, the city moved to foreclose on the property since it believed DTI was not serious about redeveloping it and it had been approached by others who were. DTI insisted it was serious, and after first threatening to contest any action vigorously, agreed to waive certain defenses in exchange for a 30-day reprieve. The city formally commenced foreclosure actions early in 2003, with DTI's founder, Idoni Matthews, promising a court fight. In October it began work again. DTI completed the renovation works in 2004, the city granted DTI a Certificate of Occupancy. The building currently home of DTI's corporate headquarter and software development laboratory.

References

External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places in New York Buildings and structures in Poughkeepsie, New York Organizations established in 1873 Buildings and structures completed in 1912 National Register of Historic Places in Poughkeepsie, New York Colonial Revival architecture in New York (state) 1873 establishments in New York (state)