Photographs of the Villa Lewaro, A’Lelia Walker’s country estate in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, no date.

A’Lelia Walker was well known during the Harlem Renaissance for throwing lavish parties at her brownstone apartment in Harlem and at the Villa Lewaro; she was also the hostess of The Dark Tower, Harlem’s premier literary salon of the period. Walker’s mother, Madam C. J. Walker, said to be the the first African American millionaire, was an entrepreneur who created a wildly successful line of hair straightener, skin lightener, and other beauty products for African-American women.

From the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection Clippings Files.