William Jaird Levitt was an American real-estate developer widely credited as the father of modern American suburbia. He was noted national wide as the man who mass produced houses at a rate of one every 16 minutes.
Background
Ethnicity:
Levitt was born into a Jewish family who were originally immigrants from Russia and Austria, his grandfather was from eastern Europe.
William Jaird was born on February 11, 1907 in Brooklyn, New York. William Levitt's father, Abraham Levitt, was the son of a poor rabbi who immigrated from Eastern Europe. Abraham Levitt left school at age 10, but educated himself. At the age of 20 he entered law school, specializing in real estate law. He married Pauline Biederman in 1906. Five years later the couple had another son, Alfred Stuart. As a child, William Levitt would put on a suit, run into the living room and announce his plans to go to Manhattan to make money and live well.
Education
Levitt attended Public School 44 and Boys High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He played lacrosse and was on the swim team. Levitt majored in mathematics and English at New York University, but left in his junior year. Levitt majored in mathematics and English at New York University, but left in his junior year.
William Levitt became Levitt and Sons, Inc. president at the age of 22, handling the advertising, sales, and financing. The first Levitt house was a six bedroom, two bathroom Tudor style home that was sold for over $14,000 in 1929. The Levitts sold 600 of these upper middle class homes in four years, even though it was during the Great Depression.
Levitt earned a reputation as the person to see for high-end, custom homes on Long Island, New York's North Shore, called the Gold Coast. The company built 200 homes in the North Strathmore development in Manhasset, which sold for $9,100 to $18,500. The Levitts built another 1,200 homes in Manhasset, Great Neck, and Westchester County. Radio stars, prominent journalists, surgeons, business people, and lawyers bought the upscale Levitt houses. Selling these homes made the Levitt family rich.
In 1944, William Levitt was sent to Oahu, Hawaii as a lieutenant in the Navy Seabees. After the war, on July 1, 1947, Levitt broke ground on the $50 million development, Levittown, which ultimately included 17,000 homes on 7.3 square miles of land. Levitt revolutionized the home construction industry by sifting through outdated building codes and union rules and using new technologies to get quality building jobs completed quickly and cheaply.
He was introduced to Americans on the July 3, 1950 cover of Time magazine as the "cocky rambunctious hustler" prone to exaggeration.
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.
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 in Manhasset, New York on January 28, 1994, on the verge of bankruptcy and unable to pay his bills.
Achievements
Religion
Although Levitt opposed what he referred to as "institutionalized religion," those who knew him say he was not anti-Semitic. Levitt made large contributions to Israel. In 1947, he handed a $1 million check to Teddy Kollek (the future mayor of Jerusalem) as a loan for weapons. During his life, Levitt donated millions of dollars to Jewish charities.
Views
Levitt revolutionized the home construction industry by sifting through outdated building codes and union rules and using new technologies to get quality building jobs completed quickly and cheaply. To save money on lumber, the Levitts bought forests and built a sawmill in Oregon. They purchased appliances directly from the manufacturer, cutting out the middleman. They even made their own nails.
In achieving his housing development success, William Levitt became one of the visible examples of the prevailing business practice of many contemporary real estate developers of the era to cater to the common racism of his intended clientele, developing "white-only" enclaves in the neighborhoods he created.
Levittown later became racially mixed, but for years Levitt's sales contracts forbade resale to African Americans. He once offered to build a separate development for blacks but refused to integrate his white Levitt developments. "We can solve a housing problem, or we can try to solve a racial problem," Levitt said. "But we can't combine the two."
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.
Quotations:
In an interview shortly before his death, Levitt said he would like to be remembered as "a guy that, I suppose, gave value for low-cost housing. Not somebody that gave value for half-million-dollar houses. Anybody can do that."
Levitt defended his policy by saying, "We can solve a housing problem or we can try to solve a racial problem. But we can't do both."
"We can solve a housing problem, or we can try to solve a racial problem," Levitt said. "But we can't combine the two."
Personality
His nicknames included "The King of Suburbia" and "Inventor of the Suburb."
Interests
Fine arts; yachting
Sport & Clubs
When at school, Levitt played lacrosse and was on the swim team.
Connections
In November 1929, William Levitt married Rhoda Kirshner. The couple had a son, William Jr., in 1933. While he was married, Levitt had an ongoing love affair with his secretary, Alice Kenny. He married her in 1959, divorcing his wife after 29 years of marriage. In 1969, Levitt divorced his second wife and married Simone Korchin, an art dealer from France.