It is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as the Armstrong-Toro House, and is also known as the Casa de las Cariatides.

The American Architect and Building News magazine, on the front cover of its 25 January 1899, issue published the design of the Residencia Armstrong-Poventud.

His father, Pedro Lothario Armstrong y Creagh,[citation needed] was a Ponce merchant from St. Croix in the Danish West Indies.

Mr. Armstrong-Toro developed an international banking network with offices in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the United States, and Denmark.

[2]: 3 Architecturally speaking, the Armstrong-Toro Residence is significant in the history of Ponce because it is one of Domenech's most distinguished eclectic designs and probably the best known.

The central entrance arch cuts the podium and houses intricately carved hardwood doors and a stained-glass fanlight protected by decorative wrought iron railings.

The main entrance accesses a foyer with steps leading up to the major circulation hall through wooden and stained-glass double-doors.

[3] Some of the original furniture and personal items of the home were included in the acquisition, as the Armstrong family lived the house uninterrupted for eight decades.

[3] Almost all the furniture and utensils from that era are still in place, as well as paintings and pictures belonging the original owners of this grand old home located directly in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral, in the town square.

The Casa Armstrong-Poventud Museum is an example of the main Belle-Époque (English: "The Beautiful Epoch"), a French term that is used to describe a long period in European history noted for peace, political stability, and industrial progress.

There was for example another one in Paris in 1855 that brought about an even larger number of attendees, unprecedented in the history of mankind: 5,100,000 people coming from virtually every existing country.

The home of Señor Carlos W. Armstrong Toro and lady Eulalia Pou, now known as the Armstrong-Poventud Residence, represents this wealth despite the restrictive colonial Spanish government of the Island at the time.

[3] Señor Carlos Walter Armstrong Toro established his wealth on the agricultural prosperity the Island experienced: first as businessman, later as a banker, and finally as a politician.

Mr. Carlos Armstrong Toro had an import/export business that exposed him to the great cities of the world and put him in touch with the architectural styles of the day.

[3] The Museum at Casa Armstrong Poventud presents the latest architectural and artistic taste in vogue at the end of the 19th century in Europe.

The glass decor used in the front door of the residence, for instance, is almost identical to those used in the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in England years earlier.

The floral and natural motifs in the residence, are also characteristic of those comprising the new artistic expression of the Victorian Era evident in Europe and the United States in the first decades of the 20th century.

The Residence emphasizes a multiplicity of styles in its interior, not just different epochs, but also different countries: Chinese jar, Victorian lamps, Art-Nouveau, and Austrian glass chandeliers.

He used, for example the most advanced objects of residential utility of the time such as electricity, bathroom and kitchens that functioned with an automatic plumbing system, to create a structure characteristics of the end of the Victorian era, known as Modernism.