H. Ward Leonard House (Lawrence Park Historic District)

The H. Ward Leonard House is one of two homes built in the Lawrence Park Historic District in Bronxville, NY, for H. Ward Leonard (1861-1915), an accomplished American inventor and engineer. Leonard lived with his wife, Carolyn Good, on Wellington Circle, just around the corner from the home on Park Avenue that he had built for his mother, sister, and two nephews. Designed by architect William Winthrop Kent and completed in 1902. The house is two-and-one-half stories and exhibits a slate roof, oriel windows, and bracketed eaves. Leonard was the inventor of the early 1900s Knickerbocker motor car as well as an electric-motor speed control system still known today as the Ward Leonard System of Motor Control. The Ward Leonard Electric Company, was headquartered in Bronxville until 1916. He lived in his Lawrence Park home until 1910, when he had a new house built in nearby Sagamore Park. The Lawrence Park Historic District, including the H. Ward Leonard House, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

H. Ward Leonard was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1861. He studied electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a founder of the student newspaper, The Tech. After his graduation from MIT in 1883, Leonard worked for a number of years as an engineer for Thomas Edison, along with Nicola Tesla. He then went on to found his own company, which was soon afterwards acquired by Edison. 

In 1891, H. Ward Leonard started his own electrical consulting firm. That same year, he patented his best-known invention, the Ward Leonard System of Motor Control, as it continues to be known to the present day. The Ward Leonard System of Motor Control was used by the U.S. Navy and was outfitted on the Navy’s first submarine in 1897. That same year, Leonard moved his Ward Leonard Company to Bronxville, NY, where it stayed until 1916. (The Ward Leonard Company continues to operate out of Thomaston, CT.) 

In the early 1900s, Leonard started designing motor cars. He went on to manufacture dozens of them in Bronxville until 1903 when he made the decision to return his focus to electricity and electrical devices. During the years that the Ward Leonard Manufacturing Company was active, they produced four models of what were named the Knickerbocker car.

Leonard had a home built in Lawrence Park for himself and his wife, Carolyn Good, in 1902. The two-and-one-half story, the home designed by architect William Winthrop Kent exhibits a slate roof, oriel windows, and bracketed eaves. A nearby home that Leonard had built for his mother, sister, and nephews on Park Avenue was designed by architect William Bates, who was responsible for over thirty-five homes in Lawrence Park. 

While a resident of Lawrence Park, Leonard served from 1902-1903 as the third president of the Village of Bronxville. After he moved from Lawrence Park to nearby Sagamore Park in 1910, he served as president of the board of Sagamore Park, where Leonard Road was named in his honor. Five years later, in 1915, Leonard died suddenly while attending an event sponsored by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers at the Hotel Astor in New York City. He was fifty-three.

A later resident of the H. Ward Leonard House was Hugh Robertson, the first managing director of Rockefeller Center in New York City, whose daughter Hope married a grandson of William Van Duzer Lawrence, the namesake of Lawrence Park Historic District. The district, including the H. Ward Leonard House, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

1. Geselbracht, Ray. “Made in Bronxville: H. Ward Leonard and the Knickerbocker Car.” Village of Bronxville website. Nov 2021. Accessed Sept 22, 2022. https://www.villageofbronxville.com/sites/g/files/vyhlif336/f/uploads/2021novembermadebronxvilleknickerbockerwebsite.pdf 
2. “H. Ward Leonard Dies: Electrical Inventor Stricken Going to Dinner at Hotel Astor.” New York Times. Feb 19, 1915. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/02/19/100142199.html?pageNumber=9 
3. Hoagland, Loretta. Lawrence Park: Bronxville’s Turn-of-the-Century Art Colony. Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press. 1992. 
4. “Lawrence Park Historic District #80002788.” National Register of Historic Places. United States Department of the Interior/National Park Service. 2005. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75323083 
5. “Learn How Ward Leonard Helped Shape the Industry.” Ward Leonard company website. Accessed Sept 21, 2022. https://wardleonard.com/about-ward-leonard/history/ 
6. Williams, Gray. Picturing Our Past: National Register Sites in Westchester County. Westchester County Historical Society. 2003.