William Levitt

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.[5]

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.[6]

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.[5]

Aerial view circa 1959 of Levittown, Pennsylvania

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 foundation, and could be purchased for as little as one-dollar down payment.[7]

Levitt & Sons' first successful housing development was located on almost 20 square miles (52 km²) 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.[8]

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,[8] 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 ($65,000 in 2009 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.[5]

Levitt was the cover story in Time magazine for July 3, 1950, with the tag line "For Sale: a new way of life."[9]

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.[10]

William had taken control of Levitt & Sons in 1954[2] 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.[11] In the early 1960s, the company built a 5,000-house community in north central New Jersey called Strathmore-at-Matawan.

By the late 1960s, Levitt had become one of the richest men in America, with a fortune estimated in excess of $100 million. 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 237 feet (72 m) yacht named after his third wife.[12]

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. 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.[13] Levitt's all-white policies also led to civil rights protests in Bowie, Maryland in 1963.[12][14] 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.[15]

The 2003 PBS series Race: The Power of an Illusion, by California Newsreel, features Levittown and nearby Roosevelt in documenting systemic racism in the development of the early suburbs.

Levitt has been criticized for his racially discriminatory policies when providing housing, which were especially discriminatory to African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.

After he had built over 140,000 houses around the world, then 60-year-old Levitt sold the company to ITT for $92 million ($810 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.[8] 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.[14]

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.