{"nrhp_refnum":"88002440","name":"US Post Office-Wappingers Falls","other_names":["Wappingers Falls Post Office"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2 South Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Wappingers Falls","county":"Dutchess County","state":"NY","lat":41.59704175000007,"lon":-73.91740147199994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1989-05-11","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Art","Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-and-one-half-story Colonial Revival post office at 2 South Avenue in the village of Wappingers Falls, Dutchess County, New York, built in 1939-40 with fieldstone and brick walls.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is architecturally and historically significant because President Franklin D. Roosevelt directly shaped its design and construction. It was one of five Hudson Valley post offices he monitored, and the only one modeled on a still-standing building, the Brewer-Mesier house. It departs from the standardized post office designs of the 1930s and retains a high degree of integrity, including murals by Henry Billings.","narrative":"Built in 1939-40 at 2 South Avenue in Wappingers Falls, this post office was designed to look like a modest eighteenth-century Hudson Valley stone house. It has irregular fieldstone walls, brick gable ends, a high-pitched gable roof and large brick chimneys. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a native of nearby Hyde Park, chose to model it loosely on the Brewer-Mesier house across the street, though he specified stone instead of the original frame construction. Consulting architect Rudolph Stanley-Brown carried out the design. Inside, the public lobby has paneled walls, deep window reveals, a gabled plaster ceiling with hand-hewn beams and its original teller screen. Two 1940 murals by Henry Billings, titled 1780 and 1880, show the village's early mill and its textile mills. It was the third of five Roosevelt-monitored post offices in the region and the only one modeled on a surviving building, an exception in an era of standardized federal designs.","period_of_significance":"1939-40; 1940","architect_builder":"R. Stanley-Brown, Consulting Architect","architectural_style":"Colonial Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as in good condition and occupied, with few alterations; a modern entry porch was added and the lobby, partly partitioned in the mid-1970s, was restored to its original dimensions.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:45.950353-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/88002440.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88002440/40ff0abe31-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88002440/40ff0abe31-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Daniel Case","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wappingers_Falls_Village_Hall.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Daniel Case</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wappingers_Falls_Village_Hall.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"84002380","name":"Wappingers Falls Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/new-york/wappingers-falls-historic-district-84002380/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75312636","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Wappingers_Falls_Village_Hall","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1229508"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/dutchess-county/us-post-office-wappingers-falls-88002440/"}