The Po’Keepsie Motor was located at 481 South Road – Route 9 in Poughkeepsie, New York. As you can tell from the postcard above, the motel was located right next to a Howard Johnson’s restaurant.
The official grand opening for the motel was October 21, 1956. With 53 units and a swimming pool, the Po’Keepsie offered “all the conveniences of the city plus the quiet, peaceful surrounding of beautiful rural Dutchess County.”
According to advertising cost was never questioned. Wall-to-wall carpeting and TV came standard in each room, which was not cheap at the time.
In the 1960s the motel was renovated and modernized. 115 total rooms and a large, neon sign with an arrow helped give the Po’Keepsie a much higher profile.
The Po’Keepsie is an unusual motel in the fact that it lasted and lasted and remained independent for 30 plus years. However, a low occupancy ratethroughout the late 1980s changed the mindset of the management.
In 1989, it was announced that the plucky Po’Keepsie had decided to join a franchise and become an Econo-Lodge.
The building is still standing. It is no longer an Econo Lodge and is now named, once more, the Poughkeepsie Inn.
When it opened, the Po’Keepsie was so far out in farmland nobody thought it would make it. My Dad and I went there for dinner (great restaurant) the first month it was open because Negroes could get served there. Now it seems like Poughkeepsie has extended so far out it doesn’t actually end until Wappingers Falls.