She continued to donate money throughout her career to the NAACP, the YMCA, and to black schools, organizations, individuals, orphanages, and retirement homes.
In 1917, she commissioned Vertner Tandy, the first licensed black architect in New York State and a founding member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, to design a house for her in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, Villa Lewaro.The house cost $250,000 to build. She moved into Villa Lewaro in May 1918 and hosted an opening event to honor Emmett Scott, then the Assistant Secretary for Negro Affairs of the United States War Department.
Just before her death she pledged $5,000, which was equivalent to about $65,000 in today's dollars, to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's anti-lynching fund. Madam C. J. Walker died at Villa Lewaro on Sunday, May 25, 1919, from complications of hypertension. She was 51. In her will she directed two-thirds of future net profits of her estate to charity and bequeathing. At her death she was considered to be the wealthiest African-American woman in America. According to Walker's New York Times obituary, "she said herself two years ago [in 1917] that she was not yet a millionaire, but hoped to be some time."Her daughter, A'Lelia Walker, became the president of the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company.