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Purpose and benefits

Bill Levitt never intended to go into the construction business. Neither did his father. But when one of his father’s property deals went awry, the family was left with 40 half-built houses that needed finishing to recoup their investment. The young Levitt was press-ganged into helping, and ended up as president of the family construction business, Levitt & Sons. Custom-built houses for wealthy execs followed. Then in post-second world war America, Levitt struck gold. Buying up vast tracts of farm land on Long Island with the help of his father and brother, he constructed Levittown—a seminal milestone in US construction history. It marked a transition to mass-constructed, low-cost housing. Levitt sold his business to Harold Geneen’s ITT in 1967 for $92 million; was virtually bankrupted in the 1970s, and made a failed comeback in the 1980s. He died in 1993, with a tarnished reputation, but is still remembered fondly by many of the original residents of Levittown.