Vertner Tandy

Vertner Woodson Tandy was born on the seventeenth of May 1885 at Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Henry Allen Tandy, a respected brick contractor whose firm executed masonry for prominent Lexington buildings, and Emma Brice Tandy. From that Bluegrass foundation of skilled hands and hard-won standing, the young Tandy carried the trade of building into a new century and a wider arena.

He studied architectural drawing at Tuskegee Institute before transferring to Cornell University, from which he graduated in 1907. At Cornell in 1906 he became one of the seven founders — the "Seven Jewels" — of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African American men, serving as its first treasurer and designing its pin. He then went on to become the first African American registered architect in the State of New York.

With partner George Washington Foster, Tandy opened the firm Tandy & Foster in New York City. Their work rose across Harlem and the Hudson Valley, including St. Philip's Episcopal Church and the Ivey Delph Apartments. His most celebrated commission was Villa Lewaro, the stately Italianate mansion of Madam C. J. Walker at Irvington-on-Hudson, completed in 1918, which became a gathering place of the Harlem Renaissance.

He also became the first African American commissioned an officer in the New York State National Guard and an early Black member of the American Institute of Architects. Vertner Woodson Tandy died on the seventh of November 1949 in Manhattan. May the honored ancestor who drew dignity in stone and brick be remembered as long as his buildings stand.