Lazarus was not a trained architect by profession — he worked as an iron founder and as engineer to the Kingston and Liguanea Water Works Company, and sat as a local political leader in colonial Jamaica — but he is the name attached to the one commission he is remembered for: Devon House, built in 1881 at Half Way Tree, Kingston, for George Stiebel, reputed to be Jamaica's first Black millionaire, made rich by mining and shipping ventures in Venezuela. The house follows the symmetrical massing of Jamaican Georgian planning, with wraparound verandahs and jalousied windows judged against the island's heat, built of brick, timber and iron gates shipped in for the purpose. The property faced demolition in 1965 before the Jamaican government intervened to preserve it as a heritage site. No birth or death date for Lazarus has been established in the sources consulted.
