Developer's legacy on LI disappearing

Pieces of Long Island's history -- the country club mansions, swimming pools and tennis courts that anchored small neighborhoods built by pioneering developer Levitt and Sons -- are disappearing.

Levitt, best known for its sprawling postwar development of Levittown, built a handful of those higher-end communities on Long Island, several in North Hempstead.

But in the past few decades, during development booms across Long Island, much of the open space was built over, pools were closed, club houses razed. Residents of some Levitt communities that still have the original amenities struggle to keep them.

In the Strathmore Village neighborhood in Manhasset, residents last month fought a proposed zoning change to allow a parking lot on vacant land known locally as the "bath club site." The proposal was withdrawn.

In Strathmore Vanderbilt, also in Manhasset, annual country club fees average $6,000 to cover operations and upkeep.

In the Roslyn Country Club community, the town is negotiating to take over a pool, tennis courts and open space surrounding the former neighborhood club building that is now used as a catering facility. The issue is on the town board's agenda for Sept. 27.

"There's a lot of historical importance" in the communities, said Joshua Ruff, curator at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook. "They are significant because, in some ways, they were laboratories and testing grounds for what would come later" with Levittown.

Between 1929 and 1949, Levitt and Sons built at least 10 small communities on Long Island in addition to Levittown, said Kevin Sylvester, who manages the LevittownBeyond .com website dedicated to the developer's communities.

The early neighborhoods exemplify Levitt's first efforts at community planning.

The Levitts believed pools and meeting halls were necessary to bring residents together and create a community, said Monique Jeannine Levitt, 80, of Honolulu, widow of Alfred Levitt, who worked at the company with his father Abraham and brother William.

In 1976, William Levitt sold the company for $92 million to International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. Levitt and Sons, renamed Levitt Corp., is no longer in business.

"One of the smartest things that Levitt did when he was building his developments was including open space and recreation," North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman said. "The shame of it all is most of these spaces have been built over -- there's houses on them now."

Marie Primosch, 83, who has lived in Strathmore Village for 46 years, called the early period "wonderful because it was really, truly a community for us."

Homeowners in Strathmore-at-Manhasset, a Levitt community now called North Strathmore, still use the clubhouse -- the former home of Judge Horatio G. Onderdonk -- for meetings and parties, but the neighborhood's hold on the 1836 Greek Revival manse is tenuous. Voluntary civic association dues and donations cover maintenance costs.

"The house over the years has fallen somewhat into disrepair," said Chuck Jettmar, vice president of the Strathmore Association. "We could lose control of the Onderdonk House if we're not wise in trying to maintain it."

The Manhasset-area Strathmores -- a common Levitt name used for developments -- were built between the mid-1930s and 1940s.

Buyers had a choice of Colonial, Tudor and Georgian home styles set along winding roads. Sale prices ranged from $10,000 to $14,000, according to the Levittown Historical Society's publication, "The History of Levittown, New York."

Levittown, the 17,447-house development in Hempstead often cited as the first suburb, was built between 1947 and 1951 and offered five home models with similar floor plans and a $7,990 average sale price.

The Levitts continued to build smaller communities after Levittown. The 668-home Roslyn Country Club neighborhood opened in 1949.

Although the pool and tennis courts are closed and the clubhouse is used for catering, the original Levitt amenities are intact. It's a collection that "could be the only one [left] in town," Kaiman said. "It's important to do anything to preserve it."

Kaiman grew up in a Strathmore development with a community pool in Matawan, N.J.

Historians and preservationists point to several reasons for the loss of the Levitt amenities.

"It may be management. It may be due to changes in recreational patterns," said Richard Longstretch, an American studies professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and the author of "Second Suburb" about a Levittown outside Philadelphia.

As Levitt and Sons began to expand and build communities in other states and abroad, the company's focus also changed.

"They were ultimately in the business of building houses and not so much in maintaining communities," Ruff said.
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Levitt developments built on LI between 1929 and 1949

• Country Club Estates -- Roslyn, Levittown, Hempstead

• Munsey Park (land sales only) -- Manhasset

• Roslyn Country Club -- Roslyn Heights, South Strathmore, Manhasset

• Strathmore at Great Neck -- Great Neck

• Strathmore at Manhasset -- Manhasset

• Strathmore at Rockville Centre -- Rockville Centre

• Strathmore at Roslyn -- East Hills

• Strathmore-Vanderbilt -- Manhasset

• Strathmore Village at Manhasset -- Manhasset

• West Park -- Westbury

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Other Levittown developments

• Pennsylvania: Started in 1951 in Bristol, Falls and Middletown townships

• New Jersey: Started in 1958 in Township of Willingboro

• In later years, Levitt and Sons expanded nationally and internationally. The parent company and several subsidiaries built communities in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, as well as Puerto Rico, France and Spain.

Source: LevittownBeyond.com