Villa Lewaro in Irvington, NY

 The way she was able to create a business that would propel her to millionaire status before women were given the right to vote in this nation, and the fact that she's still being talked about more than 100 years later is simply amazing. Especially given the fact that she was a black woman born in the South in 1867. 

Welcome to Tangible Remnants. I'm Nakita Reed, and this is my show where I explore the interconnectedness of architecture, preservation, sustainability, race, and gender. I'm excited that you're here. So let's get into it.  Welcome back. This week's episode is a solo episode where I'll be talking about an actual tangible remnant.

You know, a historic building that left a mark on the built environment and helps tell the story of people who came before us. As a framework for this episode, I'll start with the building and then elaborate on the legacy of the historical figure behind the building. The show notes for this episode will be full of articles and resources.

So if you want to go down the rabbit hole of historic research, I'll be sure to leave you some breadcrumbs.  Head over to our Instagram account at Tangible Remnants to see photos of the building and the main historical figure that will be discussed.  And once you're there, if you click on the link in bio, it'll take you to our link tree where you'll be able to sign up for our newsletter, access resources, and connect with me.

It's a great one stop shop for all things tangible remnants. So I'll give you a couple clues about this tangible remnant so you can see if you can guess the building or the historical figure. Here we go.  The historical figures great great granddaughter wrote a biography, which served as the inspiration for the fictional Netflix series featuring Octavia Spencer and Tiffany Haddish.

Before reading the biography, I was familiar with the historical figure that commissioned the house that I'll talk about. Just as many black women who've ever gotten a perm or relaxer are likely familiar with her. In reading the biography and learning more about the historical figure, I was surprised to learn that contrary to popular belief, she did not make hair straightener products, but actually made hair grower products. 

All right, you have a guess?  Well, I've given you a number of clues, and many of you may already know the person that I'm talking about. So let's start with the building. The tangible remnant I'm talking about today is located in Irvington, New York, and it's called Villa Lewaro. This three story, 34 room mansion and detached carriage house sit on three and one-eighth acres overlooking the Hudson River.

It was built in 1918 and is 20, 000 square feet. Villa Lewaro is located in the Hudson Valley, just three miles from John D. Rockefeller's mansion, Kaikut, and was commissioned by America's first self-made female millionaire, Sarah Breedlove, aka Madam C. J. Walker.  She hired architect Vertner Woodson Tandy to design the mansion, and he was the first African American architect registered in the state of New York, and also one of the first African-Americans to become a member of the American Institute of Architects. 

He was born in 1885 in Lexington, Kentucky, and trained under Robert Taylor at Tuskegee Institute.  He graduated from Cornell in 1908, and through his architecture firm, Tandy and Foster, he designed a number of notable buildings, including Villa Loiro. Villa Loiro was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and the nomination form was prepared by Lynn Gomez Grave of the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation, an organization started by the DeForest Brothers.

The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 for its architectural significance in association with Madame C. J. Walker. It was then named a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2014.  A'Lelia Bundles is Madame C. J. Walker's great-great granddaughter, and she wrote a book entitled On Her Own Ground.

And here's a synopsis from the book.  For your reference, quote, the daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Sarah Breedlove, who'd become known as Madam C. J. Walker, was orphaned at seven, married at 14,  and widowed at 20. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for 1. 50 a week.

Then, with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for Black women, everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds, building a storied beauty empire from the ground up, amassing wealth unprecedented among Black women, and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism.

Along the way, she formed friendships with great early 20th-century political figures such as Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune. WBE Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, unquote.  So this biography is what inspired Netflix to make the miniseries Self Made, and that series has helped made Madam C. J. Walker's legacy more familiar to a wider audience. 

Growing up, I was familiar with Madam C. J. Walker, but it wasn't until I watched the Netflix movie that I realized that C. J. Walker was her husband, and her first name was actually Sarah.  The way she was able to create a business that would propel her to millionaire status before women were given the right to vote in this nation.

And the fact that she's still being talked about more than a hundred years later is simply amazing. Especially given the fact that she was a black woman born in the South in 1867.  And she wasn't just a self proclaimed millionaire. She's officially recognized by the Guinness book of World Records for being America's first self-made female millionaire. 

She grew into a talented entrepreneur with a knack for self-promotion and built a business empire developing beauty and hair products for black women. She started out selling products directly to black women and later employed beauty culturalists to hand-sell her products.  Madam Walker trained nearly 23, 000 sales agents and workers serving customers in the United States, Central America, and the Caribbean.

She's quoted as saying, I am not satisfied in making money for myself. I endeavor to provide employment for hundreds of the women of my race.  She was a generous philanthropist and used her fortune to fund scholarships for women at the Tuskegee Institute and donated large parts of her wealth to the NAACP, the Black YMCA, and other charities. 

Madame Walker constructed her mansion in Hudson Valley as an intentional monument dedicated to her own legacy and the potential greatness that exists within all Americans, but especially women. The name of the mansion, Villa Lewaro, is named after Madame's daughter, Lilia Walker Roberts, later known as A'Lilia Walker.

and was coined by the famous Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, who visited the site during construction.  The name comes from the first two letters of each word in Lilia's name. Lilia, L E, Walker, W A, Roberts, R O, Lewaro.  The building was completed in 1918, but unfortunately, Madam Walker did not get to enjoy it for too long, as she died in 1919.

Lillia inherited the building but preferred being in Harlem and traveling the world, instead of staying in upstate New York. However, there are many reports of parties that she threw whenever she went back to the mansion. And Villa Lewaro is known to be one of the intellectual gathering places for notable leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, such as James Walden Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, W.

E. B. Du Bois, and Langston Hughes.  When Lelia died in  1931, the building was bequeathed to the NAACP, which then sold the building in 1932 to a fraternal organization named the Annie E. Poth Home for Aged Members of the Companions of the Forest in America.  I hadn't heard of the Companions of the Forest of America, but a quick Google search led me to a 1970s photograph from a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, SFMOMA, in a series called Our Kind of People, with a caption from someone named Bill Owens that said, The Companions of the Forest of America teaches devotion to the home, respect for other people's religious beliefs, loyalty to the American flag, and obedience to God's commandments. 

Thanks to this organization occupying Villa Lewaro, it remained largely intact for the next 50 years.  In the 1980s, the huge trees that originally had attracted Madame Walker to build on this site saved the house from a developer who wanted to demolish it and erect condominiums. Thankfully, a tree ordinance was able to protect the property where the national register listing could not. 

Fast forwarding a decade, Harold Dulé, founder of Dulé Securities, the oldest African American-owned and operated investment banking firm in the U. S., bought and moved into the home with his wife. They remained in the home until 2018.  The Dulés did a number of upgrades to the MEP systems in the house and restored a number of rooms.

They sold the mansion in 2018, but prior to selling the property, they protected Villa Lewaro in perpetuity through a preservation and conservation easement donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The easement protects the exterior of the main house and carriage house,  as well as the iconic Monte Level Terrace and the associated landscaping.

Additionally, the easement protects important interior spaces and features, such as the parlors on the first floor and Madam C. J. Walker's bedroom and bathroom on the second floor. And this easement requires all future owners of the property to adhere to these protections. Villa Lewaro was purchased by the New Voices Foundation in 2018, and the foundation offers women of color entrepreneurs access, capital, and expertise to scale their businesses through funding, networking, and learning opportunities.

Although Villa Lewaro remains in private ownership, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has organized a planning and advisory team that includes preservationists, historians, and other groups to help the new owner explore possibilities. And provide recommendations for the foundation's rehabilitation and future use of the property. 

This building is such an amazing example of a tangible remnant and a building that reminds us about Madam CJ Walker's remarkable life and legacy as this historic residence embodies the optimism and perseverance of her American entrepreneurial spirit.  All right. Well, that's a wrap on this tangible remnant.

I hope you enjoyed learning more about Madam C. J. Walker's Villa Lewaro and the legacy of America's first self-made female millionaire.  Do you have a favorite historic building, a tangible remnant, if you will, that you would want to recommend? Email me at tangibleremnants@gmail.  com and your suggested building just might make it onto the show.

Until next time.  Thank you so much for listening. Links to amazing resources can be found in the episode's show notes. Special thanks to Sarah Gilberg for allowing me to use snippets of her song Fireflies from her debut album, Other People's Secrets,  which by the way is available wherever music is sold. 

If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the show,  and now that Tangible Remnants is part of the Gabl Media Network, you can listen and subscribe. to all network partner content at gablmedia. com. That's G A B L media. com.  Until next time. Remember that historic preservation is a present conversation with our past about our future.

We don't inherit the earth from our parents, but we borrow it from our children. So let's make sure we're telling our inclusive history.  I saw the first fireflies sun and right then  I thought of you.  Oh, I could see us catching them and setting them free.  Honey, that's what you do.  Ooh,  that's what you do to me.