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Belmont Mausoleum Woodlawn Cemetery Bronx, New York The Belmont mausoleum is a full scale replica of the Chapel of St. Hubert in the Queens section of Chateau Amboise in France’s famed Loire Valley. The Chapel was designed by Leonardo DaVinci in the “Gothic Flamboyant” style in the early 1500’s. DaVinci spent the last three years of his life in the village of Amboise as a guest of Francois I. Upon his death in 1519, DaVinci’s remains were placed in a sarcophagus in the chapel he designed. Above the doorway is a relief depicting St. Hubert, St. Christopher and an array of other religious figures. Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont (1858-1908), who rests beneath the protruding gargoyles of his mausoleum was hardly a religious man. O.H.P. Belmont’s great love was horses. He was the founder of the Belmont Raceway. After O.H.P. died, following an attack of appendicitis, his wife Alva Vanderbuilt Belmont (she was previously married to William Vanderbuilt), used large sums of her fortune to support the growing suffragette movement. Alva lived a long life and after her death in Paris in 1933, her remains were interred in the Belmont mausoleum. Interred along with Alva is the suffragette banner she carried, inscribed with the words, “failure is impossible”. The banner hangs inside the mausoleum.