Author: Evan Nicole Brown / Source: Atlas Obscura
In 1916, America’s first black female self-made millionaire, Madam C.J. Walker, had a house built. And by house we mean mansion, one befitting her fortune and status, cleverly named Villa Lewaro—an amalgamation of her daughter’s first, middle, and last names (A’Lelia Walker Robinson).
Walker was a trailblazing entrepreneur, and her beauty product company was at one time the largest black-owned business in the United States. Her Italianate villa in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, is now in its hundredth year, and is being reimagined as a learning and leadership institute for female entrepreneurs of color.The 28,000-square-foot estate, designed by Vertner Woodson Tandy (the first licensed black architect in New York State), was recently purchased by the New Voices Foundation for an undisclosed amount. The foundation is the nonprofit branch of the New Voices Fund, a $100 million investment fund dedicated to entrepreneurs following in Walker’s footsteps. Both the fund and the foundation were created by Richelieu Dennis, a Liberian entrepreneur and investor, who will help oversee the transition of Villa Lewaro from a riverfront estate to a creative think tank. It’s notable that Dennis’s family founded Shea Moisture hair products, a business, like Walker’s, that was built on a family recipe for African-American beauty needs.
Though Walker only lived at Villa Lewaro for one year (from May 1918 until her death in May 1919), over time the home served as a cultural and intellectual meeting place for leaders…
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