[4] His father was Abraham Levitt, a Brooklyn-born[5] real estate attorney and part-time investor; his mother was Pauline Biederman.

[2][5] In 1929, William's father Abraham founded a real-estate development company called Levitt & Sons.

[7] Levitt & Sons' first successful housing development was located on almost 20 square miles (52 km2) of land near Hempstead, Long Island and was named Levittown.

Levitt 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.

His mass production of thousands of houses at virtually the same time allowed Levitt to sell them, fully furnished with modern electric appliances, for as little as $8,000 each ($95,000 in 2024 dollars), which, with the G.I.

By the late 1960s, Levitt had become one of the richest men in America, with a fortune estimated in excess of $100 million (~$1 billion in 2024).

[12][14] 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.

[15] 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.

[8] 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.

[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.

[2][14] 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.

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.

[23][24][25] Ten years later, in 1969, Levitt divorced his second wife and married a French art dealer, Simone Korchin.