William Jared Levitt (February 11, 1907 - January 28, 1994), is the real-estate developer widely credited as the father of modern American suburbia. He certainly did not invent the building of communities of affordable single-family homes within driving distance of major areas of employment; yet his innovations in providing affordable housing popularized this type of planned community in the years following World War II.

Background

As President of Levitt & Sons , the real-estate development company founded by his father Abraham Levitt near the start of the Great Depression, William Levitt oversaw all aspects of the company but design of the homes they built. Design duties were handled by William's brother Alfred.

Prior to World War II, Levitt & Sons built mostly upscale housing in an around Long Island, New York. After returning from the war, during which he served in the Navy as a lieutenant in the Seabees, William Levitt saw a need for affordable housing for the returning veterans.

Construction of Levittown, New York

Levitt & Sons chose an area near Hempstead, Long Island as the site for their first major building project after the war. This would come to be called Levittown, New York. Drawing upon his Seabee experience, Levitt's innovation in creating this planned community was to build the houses in the manner of an assembly line. In normal assembly lines, the workers stay stationary and the product moves down the line. In Levitt's home-building assembly line, the product (houses) obviously could not move.

Groups of workers would descend on a new, empty street. The slab laying group would go down the street laying concrete slabs for house after house, 60 feet apart. Other construction groups would work in the same manner, adding their part to the house lot by lot. The result was high-quality, nearly identical houses that were built at a fraction of what would have normally been the cost.

Residents started moving into Levittown, New York in 1947. Houses sold for under $8000, a low price even by 1947 standards. Both the houses and the residents would come to be known as Levittowners. Levittown, New York eventually grew to 17,000 houses, although William Levitt's inital contribution was 6,000 houses.

Other Levittown Projects

Levitt went on to plan and build an 18,000 home Levittown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which saw its first residents in 1952. A third Levittown of 12,000 houses is located in southwestern New Jersey, although it has since reverted to its former name of Willingboro Township, New Jersey to avoid confusion with the neighboring Levittown community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Livittown, Puerto Rico , built in the 1960s, was also one of Levitt's projects.

During the late 1950s, Levitt and Sons also developed the commmuity known as "Belair at Bowie," in Bowie, Maryland. In 1957 they acquired the historic Belair Estate , home of Maryland's colonial Governor Samuel Ogle and his son, state Governor Benjamin Ogle . In 1959 the community was annexed by Bowie.

After a few smaller building projects, William Levitt sold Levitt & Sons to International Telephone & Telegraph in 1968 for a reported $60 million. He lost much of his wealth in less successful real estate projects in the 1970s and 1980s.

Trivia

Levitt was featured on the cover of Time Magazine's July 3, 1950 issue.

External links

• Overview of Levitt's architecture by Jon Blackwell