The House That Levitt Built

More than a decade before the first Levittown slab was poured, 24-year-old Alfred Levitt took a leave from the family firm to watch legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright work his magic. It was 1936, and every day for 10 months, Levitt would head to the Great Neck site where the designer was building publisher Ben Rehbuhn's house, a sweeping horizontal brick-and-glass structure that echoed Wright's earlier Prairie School designs. Alfred drank in the details, riveted by the foppish Wright's utopian theories (he believed form follows esthetics) yet repulsed by his profligacy (nine out of 10 bricks delivered to the Rehbuhn site were rejected as imperfect). Alfred loved the openness of the plan. The unity between interior and landscape. The signature fireplace, which served as the focal point of the house.

By Michele Ingrassia