No Longer Standing: Buildings of Poughkeepsie

By Shannon Butler

The Local History Room collections have a lot of photographs of buildings that are long gone. Some of them were destroyed by fire, or decayed from years of abandonment. Some were removed to make way for Urban Renewal or just to put up modern buildings in their place. As time drags on, some older buildings have antiquated interiors that no longer fit the needs of modern Americans. Very few people need a butler’s pantry or a drawing room. We prefer bigger kitchens for our oversized refrigerators and lots of counter space for our Ninja blenders and air fryers. We want a big living room for our large smart TVs and gaming chairs. We want lower ceilings to keep our heating costs down, and overall modern spaces that fit our modern needs. This is probably why it’s hard to find a house with original details intact and why so many older houses have been removed as opposed to rehabbed. Sometimes, when it comes to historic homes, all we have to remind us of their existence are photos and maps.

Our collection contains a photo of a fabulously detailed house with a meticulously kept lawn. This was the home of the Whitehouse family and was located on Hooker Avenue. John Osborne Whitehouse was born in Rochester, New Hampshire, in 1817, and worked on a modest farm until he was 18 years old. He then made his way into Brooklyn to begin his business career and it appears he succeeded rather quickly. In the early 1860s he began the firm of J.O. Whitehouse and Company, which manufactured boots and shoes, and established a factory in Poughkeepsie on the corner of Main and North Cherry Streets. He was quite successful in his endeavors, even serving in Congress as a democrat from 1873 to 1877, as well as a chairman of the Committee on Reform in the Civil Service. He married Fannie Smith, and together they had six children and lived between their summer home in Poughkeepsie and a place in Brooklyn on Clinton Avenue. Sadly, the Whitehouses would see one tragedy after another as all three of their sons died from tuberculosis, one daughter burned to death, and another child died in infancy. One daughter managed to survive into adulthood, Mary Josephine, and married Eugene Howell on October 10, 1877, in the family’s home, which they had named Mountain View.

When Mr. Whitehouse died in 1881, he left his widow and daughter millions of dollars along with the fabulous Italianate style house and gardens. We can see from both the map and a photo from the personal collection of Jeffrey Kraus that the estate had a beautiful grapery (aka greenhouse). The map also shows that the estate had a gate lodge, carriage barns, and even a pond, which is now gone. From the federal census of 1880, we know that there were at least six workers living on the property, so the house likely had servants quarters for their live-in help and farm workers likely lived in the gate lodge.

Mrs. Fannie Whitehouse continued to live in the home until her death in 1893. At that point, Howell (Whitehouse’s son-in-law) took over the old factory and began investing in real estate ventures, including developing the land around the Whitehouse estate. The historic houses along Dwight Street were built during this time. Howell brought in architect Horace Trumbauer to design a neighborhood with five grand houses. At an auction in 1901, Charles M. Clay won the Whitehouse mansion that came complete with a bowling alley and a billiard room for $6,350 and he continued to live in the home until the 1950s. In May of 1955, a fire ripped through the house causing considerable damage and it was demolished in 1960. Today nothing remains of the Whitehouse property, only a street that bears his name, but we sure would love to see that bowling alley and billiard room! Things we don’t often have in our modern day homes!