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. In 1998 he was named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century."[1]
William Levitt
January 28, 1994 (aged 86)
New York University
(no degree)
Real estate developer
American suburban development
Rhoda Kirshner (divorced)
Alice D. Kenny (divorced)
Simone Korchin
4 (including 2 adopted)
1942–1945
Early life and education[edit]
Levitt was born in 1907 to a Jewish family in Brooklyn.[2] His generation was the second since emigrating from Russia and Austria;[3] the paternal grandparents who immigrated to the United States had been a rabbi grandfather from Russia and a grandmother from Austria-Germany.[4] His father was Abraham Levitt, a Brooklyn-born[5] 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.[2] He then attended New York University for three years, but dropped out before graduating.[2][5]
Levitt & Sons[edit]
1920s–1930s[edit]
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]
After World War II[edit]
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]
Later years and death[edit]
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[16] which failed. The ITT stock he often used for collateral on these ventures lost 90% of its value, saddling him with great debt.[2]
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.[17]
He was accused of misappropriation of funds from the charitable Levitt Foundation and agreed to repay $5 million,[18] more than $5 million[2] or $11 million (in 1992).[19]
Levitt died from kidney disease at a hospital in Manhasset, New York, on January 28, 1994, at the age of 86.[2][14]
Legacy[edit]
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.[8]
His nicknames included "The King of Suburbia" [20] and "Inventor of the Suburb." At his height, when he was completing one suburban house every 11 minutes,[21] Levitt compared his successes to those of Henry Ford's automobile assembly line.[20] Time magazine recognized Levitt as one of the "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century" in 1998.[8]
Levitt was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1965.
Personal life[edit]
Levitt married Rhoda Kirshner in November 1929.[22] 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.[23][24][25] Ten years later, in 1969, Levitt divorced his second wife and married a French art dealer, Simone Korchin.[2]