{"nrhp_refnum":"76001289","name":"Villa Lewaro","other_names":["Anne E. Poth House"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"N. Broadway","address_restricted":false,"city":"Irvington","county":"Westchester County","state":"NY","lat":41.04314190350004,"lon":-73.86396996416326,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1976-05-11","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1976-05-11","areas_of_significance":["Black","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Villa Lewaro is a 34-room Italian Renaissance-style mansion on North Broadway in Irvington (Greenburgh), Westchester County, New York, designed by Vertner Tandy and completed in 1918 as the country home of Madame C. J. Walker.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the house is the finest and most complete work of Vertner Tandy, New York's first licensed black architect, and was one of the first projects of its scale by a black architect. It was also owned, designed and built by Black people, which was remarkable for the period. It illustrates Black achievement in architecture and business through Madame Walker, a successful cosmetics entrepreneur.","narrative":"Villa Lewaro is a three-story mansion above the Hudson River in Irvington, New York, completed in 1918 for cosmetics entrepreneur Madame C. J. Walker. Architect Vertner Tandy, the state's first licensed Black architect, designed it in an early Italian Renaissance style on the scale of an Italian palace. The fireproof structure has white stucco walls, a red tile roof, concrete balustrades and a two-story portico with six Ionic columns. It originally held 34 rooms, including a gold-trimmed room with a specially made organ. Terraces, a fountain, a sunken garden and a pergola completed the grounds. The nomination presents the house as Tandy's most complete design and as one of the first projects of that size by a Black architect, built for a Black client and by Black contractors. After Walker's death and the sale of the property in 1931, it became the Anna E. Poth Home. Later changes include a chapel, an elevator and a fire escape.","period_of_significance":"1900-","architect_builder":"Vertner Tandy (1885-1949), architect; Miller and Reed, black contractors of Harlem, built Madame Walker's country home","architectural_style":"Early Italian Renaissance","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied; in use as the Anna E. Poth Home, a nursing home, since 1931. Kept in excellent repair with some alterations, including a chapel conversion, an elevator, a fire escape, and loss of the garden and pergola.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:38.766316-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/76001289_NHL.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/76001289/93233406c6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/76001289/93233406c6-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Dmadeo; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Villa-lewaro_crop.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Dmadeo; cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Villa-lewaro_crop.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75316112","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Lewaro","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7930386"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/westchester-county/villa-lewaro-76001289/"}