William Jaird 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. He was named one of ''Time'' Magazine's " 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century."

Early life and education

Levitt was born in 1907 to a Jewish family in Brooklyn. His generation was the second since emigrating from Russia and Austria; the paternal grandparents who immigrated to the United States had been a rabbi grandfather from Russia and a grandmother from Austria-Germany. His father was Abraham Levitt, a Brooklyn-born 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. He then attended New York University for three years, but dropped out before graduating.

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.

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.

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 – units remained unsold in 1950. Levitt & Sons' first successful housing development was located on almost 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. Levitt also reduced costs by freezing out union labor – a move which provoked picket lines – enabling him to use the latest technology, such as spray painting. He 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, 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 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.

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

As Levitt & Sons' president, Levitt proposed and constructed other East Coast developments throughout the 1960s. 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. In the early 1960s, the company built a 5,000-house community in north central New Jersey called Strathmore-at-Matawan.

William took control of Levitt & Sons in 1954, after splitting with Alfred. 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, and spent much of his time on ''La Belle Simone'', his yacht named after his third wife.

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. 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. Levitt's all-white policies also led to civil rights protests in Bowie, Maryland in 1963. 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.

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.

Company sale

After he had built over 140,000 houses around the world, then 60-year-old Levitt sold the company to ITT for $92 million ($ 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. 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."William Levitt"
''Your Dictionary''

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.

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 which failed. The ITT stock he often used for collateral on these ventures lost 90% of its value, saddling him with great debt.

The Levitt Corp. had their 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.

He was accused of misappropriation of funds from the charitable Levitt Foundation and agreed to repay $5 million, more than $5 million or $11 million (in 1992).

Levitt died from kidney disease at a hospital in Manhasset, New York on January 28, 1994, at the age of 86.

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.

His nicknames included "The King of Suburbia" and "Inventor of the Suburb." At his height, when he was completing one suburban house every 11 minutes, Levitt compared his successes to those of Henry Ford's automobile assembly line. ''Time'' magazine recognized Levitt as one of the "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century" in 1998.

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

Personal life

Levitt married Rhoda Kirshner in November 1929. 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. Ten years later, in 1969, Levitt divorced his second wife and married a French art dealer, Simone Korchin.

References

External links

''New York Times'' obituary
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Levitt, William
1907 births
1994 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American Jews
American city founders
United States Navy personnel of World War II
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
American people of Russian-Jewish descent
American real estate businesspeople
Real estate and property developers
Boys High School (Brooklyn) alumni
Businesspeople from Brooklyn
Deaths from kidney disease
William

Seabees
United States Navy officers