Egalitarianism Invades a Shrine Of V.I.P. Privilege;A Young Software Company Gives a Few New-Age Twists To Some Old-Style Luxuries

Lucy Ricciardi, chief financial officer of the Hyperion Software Corporation, didn't want a visitor to get the wrong impression on a tour of the company's new headquarters above Long Ridge Road.

Yes, there were kitchens stocked with snacks and drinks around every corner, and a gym, and a nature trail across the campus's 38 leafy acres, and a billiard table next to the cafeteria, for whenever employees had an urge to take a break. And yes, the main reason she rejected the idea of installing arcade games along a wide tunnel connecting Hyperion's two buildings was that programmers already had better games on their computers.

But all this, she said, was necessity for a software company, whose means of production are the brains of people who do not necessarily think 9 to 5. Any touches of true luxury, she said, were left over from the original owner, Combustion Engineering, a Fortune 500 company that built a monument to corporate permanence, only to be taken over, downsized and moved.

"When you walk around and see teak and mahogany and marble," Ms. Ricciardi said, "it's because it was too expensive to rip out."

Hyperion's move last winter marked a changing of the economic guard in Fairfield County, as a headquarters built by one of many old-line corporations that helped make Stamford a business center in the 70's and 80's and then moved on was occupied by a company founded 15 years ago to serve them.

But it also illustrates the change in office cultures over the last 20 years. For Hyperion, the challenge was to convert a suit-and-tie management center into an unbuttoned-white-collar factory. And while the company is mildly embarrassed by the lavishness of its home, it sees the amenities as crucial.