Future
projects would not escape the President's attention. He took keen interest
in selecting the site for the new Poughkeepsie Post Office and went to
battle over its design. Eric Kebbon, the government architect in charge of
the federal project, designed a Greek Revival structure but found his
sketches rejected by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau; Secretary
Morgenthau demanded the new building be made with irregular fieldstone in
the manner of the James Roosevelt Memorial Library and modeled after a
picture of the 1809 Dutchess County Courthouse supplied by President
Roosevelt's friend Helen Wilkinson Reynolds. Kebbon studied the library and
contacted Henry Toombs, but instead of stone, his building design called
for more formal-looking granite. President Roosevelt continually rejected
Kebbon's sketches until the design fit his specifications for Dutchess
County architecture.
Poughkeepsie
Post Office
Poughkeepsie
Journal Building
