William Levitt

William Jaird Levitt (February 11, 1907 – January 28, 1994) was an American real-estate developer and housing pioneer. As president of Levitt & Sons, he is widely credited as the father of modern American suburbia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1998 he was named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Early life and education

Levitt was born in 1907 to a Jewish family in Brooklyn.<ref name=nytobit>Template:Cite news</ref> His generation was the second since emigrating from Russia and Austria;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the paternal grandparents who immigrated to the United States had been a rabbi grandfather from Russia and a grandmother from Austria-Germany.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His father was Abraham Levitt, a Brooklyn-born<ref name=triumph>Template:Cite triumph</ref> real estate attorney and part-time investor; his mother was Pauline Biederman. A younger brother, Alfred, was born when William was five years old. William received a public school education at Public School 44 and Boys High School.<ref name=nytobit/> He then attended New York University for three years, but dropped out before graduating.<ref name=nytobit/><ref name=triumph />

Levitt & Sons

1920s–1930s

In 1929, William's father Abraham founded a real-estate development company called Levitt & Sons. Levitt & Sons built mostly upscale housing on and around Long Island, New York, in the 1930s. William Levitt served as company president, overseeing all aspects of the company except for the designs of the homes they built, which fell to William's brother Alfred.<ref name=triumph />

After World War II

During World War II, Levitt served in the Navy as a lieutenant in the Seabees. After returning from the war, he saw a need for affordable housing for returning veterans. America's post-war prosperity and baby boom had created a crisis of affordable housing.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Even before returning from the war, Levitt experimented with mass housing projects, building a 1,600-home community in Norfolk, Virginia, which was not a success and housing units remained unsold in 1950.<ref name=triumph />

Levittown housing developments

File:LevittownPA.jpg

Aerial view circa 1959 of Levittown, Pennsylvania

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Levittown, Puerto Rico

Levitt progressed to become a pioneer of mass production. He had houses built in less than six weeks on inexpensive land with no urban infrastructure. Houses were built on concrete slabs, with no further foundation, and could be purchased for as little as a one-dollar down payment.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Levitt & Sons' first successful housing development was located on almost Template:Convert of land near Hempstead, Long Island and was named Levittown. The assembly line construction method enabled Levitt to build more efficiently than other developers at the time, with teams of specialized workers following each other from house to house to complete incremental steps in the construction.<ref name = "Time100" />

Levitt reduced the cost of constructing houses by freezing out union labor. This provoked picket lines, but enabled him to use the latest technology, such as spray painting. Levitt also cut out middlemen and purchased many items, including lumber and televisions, directly from manufacturers, as well as constructing his own factory to produce nails. The building of every house was reduced to 27 steps,<ref name = "Time100"/> and sub-contractors were responsible for each step. His mass production of thousands of houses at virtually the same time allowed Levitt to sell them, fully furnished with modern electric appliances, for as little as $8,000 each ($95,000 in 2024 dollars), which, with the G.I. Bill and Federal housing subsidies, reduced the up-front cost of a house to many buyers to around $400.<ref name= triumph />

Levitt was the cover story in Time magazine for July 3, 1950, with the tag line "For Sale: a new way of life."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

In 1952, people started buying over 17,000 Levitt-built homes in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In addition, the company built Willingboro, New Jersey, which still has street names such as Levitt Parkway. During the late 1950s, Levitt and Sons constructed "Belair at Bowie" in Bowie, Maryland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

William had taken control of Levitt & Sons in 1954<ref name=nytobit/> and the company went public in 1960. During the 1960s, when Levitt was leading the company, Levitt & Sons developed properties beyond the American mainland, such as Levittown, Puerto Rico; Lésigny, France in Seine-et-Marne; and Mennecy in Essonne, France.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In the early 1960s, the company built a 5,000-house community in north central New Jersey called Strathmore-at-Matawan.

Personal fortune

By the late 1960s, Levitt had become one of the richest men in America, with a fortune estimated in excess of $100 million (~$1 billion in 2024). He lived in a lavish 30-room mansion on his "La Coline" estate in Mill Neck, New York, and spent much of his time on La Belle Simone, his Template:Convert yacht named after his third wife.<ref name="William Levitt">Template:Cite web</ref>

Racial segregation

Levitt refused to integrate his developments. The Jewish Levitt barred Jews from Strathmore, his first pre-Levittown development on Long Island in New York, and he refused to sell his homes to African Americans.<ref>Lambert, Bruce (December 28, 1997) "At 50, Levittown Contends With Its Legacy of Bias" The New York Times. Archived from the original.</ref><ref> Encyclopedia of World Biography (May 14, 2018) William Levitt. Archived from the original. </ref> His sales contracts also forbade the resale of properties to blacks through restrictive covenants, although in 1957 a Jewish couple resold their house to the first black family to live in a Levitt home.<ref>Ephross, Peter (February 9, 2009) "How Jews both Segregated and Integrated Levittown" Baltimore Jewish Times</ref> Levitt's all-white policies also led to civil rights protests in Bowie, Maryland in 1963.<ref name="William Levitt"/><ref name="biography.yourdictionary.com"/> The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union opposed Levitt's racist policies, and the Federal Housing Administration prepared to refuse mortgages on his next Levittown. Nevertheless, Levitt would not back down and continued planning another whites-only Levittown in Willingboro Township, New Jersey. He fought legal challenges in New Jersey courts until the United States Supreme Court refused to hear his case.<ref>Jacobson, Joanne (April 14 , 2009) "Jew vs Jew in Levittown" The Forward</ref>

Company sale

After he had built over 140,000 houses around the world, then 60-year-old Levitt sold the company to ITT for $92 million ($Template:Inflation million today) in July 1967, of which $62 million was in the form of ITT stock. ITT made Levitt president of the renamed Levitt Corp., with a non-compete clause where Levitt could not found or be employed by another United States home building company for ten years.<ref name = "Time100"/> He entered the agreement thinking he would play an active role in ITT affairs, but executives felt Levitt was too old to take on more responsibility.<ref name="biography.yourdictionary.com">"William Levitt" Your Dictionary</ref>

Levitt remained president under ITT until 1972. During that time he led the subsidiary's development of housing projects in Palm Coast, Florida; Richmond, Virginia; and Fairfax, Virginia.Template:Citation needed

Later years and death

After the restriction against Levitt moving to a new home building company in the United States expired, he was unable to repeat the success he had achieved with Levitt & Sons. He established a series of companies and joint ventures through the 1970s and 1980s<ref name=LevittCommunities>Template:Cite web</ref> which failed. The ITT stock he often used for collateral on these ventures lost 90% of its value, saddling him with great debt.<ref name=nytobit/>

The Levitt Corp. had its license to conduct business in Prince George's County, Maryland, revoked in October 1978 after building inspectors found more than 2,500 code violations in 122 homes of their latest subdivision, Northview.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

He was accused of misappropriation of funds from the charitable Levitt Foundation and agreed to repay $5 million,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> more than $5 million<ref name=nytobit/> or $11 million (in 1992).<ref name=WP>Template:Cite news</ref>

Levitt died from kidney disease at a hospital in Manhasset, New York, on January 28, 1994, at the age of 86.<ref name=nytobit/><ref name="biography.yourdictionary.com"/>

Legacy

William Levitt came to symbolize the new suburban growth with his use of mass-production techniques to construct large developments of houses, eponymously named Levittowns, selling for under $10,000. Many other relatively inexpensive suburban developments soon appeared throughout the country. While he did not invent the building of communities of affordable single-family homes within driving distance of major areas of employment, his innovations in providing affordable housing popularized this type of planned community in the years following World War II.<ref name = "Time100">Template:Cite news</ref>

His nicknames included "The King of Suburbia" <ref name="therealdeal.com">Template:Cite news</ref> and "Inventor of the Suburb." At his height, when he was completing one suburban house every 11 minutes,<ref>Halberstam, David (1997) The Fifties: "The Fear and the Dream" (documentary)</ref> Levitt compared his successes to those of Henry Ford's automobile assembly line.<ref name="therealdeal.com"/> Time magazine recognized Levitt as one of the "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century" in 1998.<ref name= "Time100" />

Levitt was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1965.

Personal life

Levitt married Rhoda Kirshner in November 1929.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Their son William Junior was born in 1932, and their second son, James, was born in 1944. The couple divorced in 1959, and, the same year, Levitt married his long-time mistress, Alice D. Kenny, an interior decorator at Levitt & Sons, and adopted her two daughters from a previous marriage, Joanne Habermehl and Mariellen Habermehl.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Ten years later, in 1969, Levitt divorced his second wife and married a French art dealer, Simone Korchin.<ref name=nytobit/>

External links

• New York Times obituary