ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701280096
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LEVITTOWN, N.Y.
SOURCE: TED ANTHONY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Before houses rose from the potato fields, before the families came, before the strip malls appeared, Steve Buczak barnstormed through the brush in a 1927 Nash convertible, a shotgun on either side, hunting fox.
Today, Buczak is 72, his vehicle is a Chevy Blazer and his quarry even more evasive. He and his history-minded friends ply the thousand bending, quaintly named lanes of the suburb that changed America, looking for an archetype.
So far, it has eluded them.
They want what the Smithsonian Institution wants, what the local landmark commission sought for two years: the closest thing Levittown has to an unmodified example, at least on the outside, of the 17,447 homes that developer William J. Levitt erected to form the country's first mass-produced suburb.
Where once the virtually identical little boxes of ticky tacky brought cries of lowbrow standardization and predictions of eventual slums, today's Levittown is a flourishing, middle-class community as architecturally diverse as any for miles around.
A half-century old, it is a place like many of the postwar suburbs it inspired, defined by a particular kind of change - home improvement, the American method of expressing individuality by making a generic space your own.
Because architectural change in Levittown is almost universal, and because few consider a 50-year-old house an antique, a historian's job here can be frustrating, if not impossible.
``One of these days, there is going to be a Levitt house that will be a museum,'' says Lynn Matarrese, who helps run the Levittown Historical Society and joins Buczak on drives to find the perfect house.
``But I don't know when that will be,'' she says. ``And I don't know where.''
* * *
``Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. Potter: That this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?''
-George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), owner of the Bedford Falls Building & Loan Co., ``It's A Wonderful Life'' (1946)
* * *
William Jaird Levitt once said he wanted to make two things - a profit and a difference. He ended up doing both.
When he bought some Long Island potato fields blighted by a creature called a nematode and built the first phase of Levittown 40 miles east of New York City, Levitt crystallized the American dream into a boxy, 4.5-room Cape Cod cottage on a 60-by-100-foot lot.
By the time he finished four years later, Cape Cods and ranch houses in slightly different variations covered 7.3 square miles. He had built an entire town, and would go on to construct two more, one in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey.
On Long Island, far past where the paved city yielded to the bucolic expanse beyond, Levitt did the unthinkable - built houses with no basements. That let him mass-produce on a reverse assembly line: Trucks deposited building materials on each lot and builders quickly worked their way up the blocks.
Returning GIs, many living with new brides and babies in cramped apartments over their parents' houses in Brooklyn or Queens, swarmed beyond Levitt's expectations. They lined up for days, these people who would create the Baby Boom and change the world. The first houses, in 1947, were rentals; later, he sold $6,990 Cape Cods and, still later, slightly more expensive ranches when ownership became the sole focus.
Each family got four rooms, a bath, an unfinished attic, and amenities - steel kitchen cabinets, Bendix washer, GE refrigerator, Hotpoint electric range. Later models included built-in TVs.
By the time veteran Theodore Bladykas, his wife and their 14-month-old twin daughters moved into the first house Oct. 1, 1947, a town was taking shape - a barely landscaped neighborhood with few public amenities and construction materials stretching to the horizon.
These were the houses; it would take families to make them homes.
* * *
From ``A Wrinkle in Time,'' a 1962 children's book by Madeleine L'Engle:
``The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small, rectangular plot of lawn in front. In front of all the houses children were playing. Some were skipping rope, some were bouncing balls.
``Then the doors of all the houses opened simultaneously, and out came women like a row of paper dolls. The print of their dresses was different, but they all gave the appearance of being the same. Each woman stood on the steps of her house. Each clapped. Each child with the ball caught the ball. Each child with the skipping rope folded the rope. Each child turned and walked into the house. The doors clicked shut behind them.
```How can they do it?' Meg asked wonderingly. `We couldn't do it that way if we tried. What does it mean?'''
* * *
At first, a numbing sameness pervaded the development Levitt initially christened ``Island Trees.'' A community? Hardly, critics said.
``People said it would be a shambles in 10 years,'' says Kathleen Weber, an original resident. ``But we were trying to find a place we could live. We saw a nice place where you could move around and raise children and not worry.''
Weber and her husband, Charles, had been married a month when they moved into a $6,990 Cape Cod called ``Job No. 70,'' in the first 2,000-house sprig of town. She was pregnant; in their front yard stood a lone tree, freshly planted.
They rented at first, then six years later bought what had become 52 Oak Tree Lane. Children made a few changes necessary; Levitt offered classes that taught Weber to build two rooms, a half-bath and a closet in the attic.
Weber did what was necessary. Most people did far more: Levittown was growing up.
* * *
From ``Thousand Lanes: Levittown's Own Magazine'':
November 1951:
*``Handy with tools? Now's the perfect time to finish your Levitt attic.''
May 1952:
*``More space for living: How one Levittown family added a garage, a dining room, a pantry and extra space to their living room - all to an inside plot house!''
Fall 1957:
*``A teen-age recreation room for 16-year-old daughter Joan and a peaceful living room for Mother and Dad - that's what the Hickey family of 33 Horn Lane wanted most in their 1950 ranch.''
Winter 1958:
*``You can do so much with these houses!''
* * *
The average cost of a single-family home is now $142,400, according to the United Homeowners Association. A basic Levitt Cape with indoor renovations - three bedrooms, a den and new vinyl siding - was listed recently at $160,000.
Today, 64.7 percent of Americans own homes. For many who can't afford their dream houses, the theory remains the same: improve what you've already got. Nowhere is this more evident than on a recent Saturday afternoon at the Home Depot superstore a mile west of Levittown.
People jam the place, buying items to do it themselves. Nearly half the store's customers are from Levittown. Employees here rattle off Levitt house specifications from memory; many live in them.
``Everybody in Levittown is thinking home improvement. It's always in their minds,'' says Wayne Shepski, a native who works in the store. ``These new kids, they're open-minded, they have a strong background and they're moving in and doing things themselves.''
In the floor and wall department, manager Chris Geist, who grew up in one Levitt house and lives in another, talks of plans to build Levitt room mock-ups to demonstrate how they can be improved. Tom O'Connor in doors and windows reports that owners are buying new ones because insulated materials exist today that weren't even ideas when the Webers moved in.
``Every American has a hammer, a screwdriver and a saw,'' says Kenneth T. Jackson, author of the book ``Crabgrass Frontier,'' a history of suburbia.
``The amount of time Americans spend working on their houses, it's unbelievably high. But we just accept that as taking care of our house. We believe it's our space, and it becomes more our space by working on it.''
* * *
Not so long ago, 31 Constellation Road was a basic 1949 Levitt ranch, a ramshackle black bungalow of the type that ads often call a ``handyman's special.''
Then Mike and Maureen Hare got hold of it. Handy they were, and special it now is.
Today, the modern, pristine-white Victorian house looms over the street, elliptical windows staring from imposing turrets.
Even in a home improvement-minded community, the Hares stand out. Childhood sweethearts, they bought the house in 1981 before becoming parents. They extended the rear in 1986 after daughters Heather and Kelly were born.
They considered buying something bigger in a nearby town. But prices were too high. So, in May 1994, they set to work.
Maureen Hare devised the plans. An architect friend drew them up. They obtained permits and variances themselves, then began a transformation.
The master bedroom became the den. They moved the garage 16 feet toward the street to enlarge the house. They closed off a hallway, added a closet, redid the upstairs, added cathedral ceilings, installed hardwood floors by drilling into the concrete foundation and constructed a foyer complete with French doors.
All this in nine months. Just the two of them - with a little help from friends now and then.
It wasn't easy; he's a UPS driver, she works part time waiting tables. They toiled evenings, weekends, even at 2 a.m. - digging, knocking out walls, stenciling, adding skylights, burying heating pipes, reroofing, re-siding, reinsulating. The girls slept on couches for nearly a year.
Today, they enjoy the benefits. Heather and Kelly have more space. The Hares throw parties for 50 people ``and the house still isn't full.'' And no longer will they face that problem they had in 1985: having to eat Christmas dinner in the living room.
``It was tough, let me tell you. Would you do it again?'' MIke Hare asks his wife.
``It was worth it,'' she replies. ``Look at this house. This is what it's all about. Everything we need is in this house.''
Adds her husband: ``There's so much you can do. You can just keep going and going.''
* * *
``There ain't much work out here in our consumer power base.
No major industry, just miles and miles of parking space.
Who remembers when it all began, out here in No Man's Land?
Before they passed the master plan - out here in No Man's Land.''
-``No Man's Land,'' 1993, by singer Billy Joel, who grew up in a Levitt house.
* * *
For a generation, we've been hearing from experts - and nonexperts - who argue that the suburb is a hollow blot on the landscape that lacks even the basics of traditional Main Street communities. Yet the exodus continues, and new kinds of communities have emerged.
Today, nearly half of Americans live in the suburbs. Long Island, the first Census Bureau metropolitan area with no central city, has become a new kind of city - a suburban metropolis that, though it looks toward New York City, has an identity all its own.
Levittown is its venerable town square.
``This, as much as any place in America, is the launching place for unlimited expectations,'' says Daphne Rus, who has lived with her husband in a Levitt ranch since 1959. The kids are grown, leaving their expanded upstairs empty.
``Young people can come here and have the satisfaction of knowing they have a chance to make it,'' says Rus, secretary of the Levittown Property Owners Association. ``They come in here and everywhere you look, people are still changing their houses. It never stops.''
With the Webers, it never really started. In the early 1990s, they replaced a leaky roof, installed thermal windows and added aluminum siding. Nothing more.
When the Hempstead Town Landmarks Preservation Commission came looking for a prototype, the Webers applied and, when 20 other applicants ultimately decided not to give consent, the house became a historic site last year.
``It's not the best example of an original Levitt house in existence,'' acknowledges Paul Van Wie, a Hofstra University political scientist and commission member. ``But what was done to it is not irreversible. Its contours are unchanged. In the future, the Weber house can easily be restored to what it was.''
The Smithsonian, meanwhile, is still looking.
* * *
They seem to go on forever, these houses that William Levitt built. You can wind through the lanes and lose yourself.
The old aerial photos - the ones people still picture when they hear the word ``Levittown'' - depict an Orwellian homogeneity. But today's Levittown resonates beyond its half-century of existence, echoing the grand themes and daily tribulations of the postwar American family.
It brims with individuality.
For the historical society, such distinctiveness is both a point of pride and a curse when members go out looking for modern relics.
At 41 Springtime Lane, modern wood prevails, complete with skylight, dramatic turret and New England-style stone wall. Eighteen Sugar Maple Lane resembles a Victorian modern with pillars, an elevated porch and an impressive bay window.
``That,'' the historical society's Buczak marvels, ``is a Levitt house.''
Corrects Matarrese: ``That WAS a Levitt house. Now it looks like it should be in the East Hamptons.''
The tour goes on. Two Sugar Maple resembles a big green farmhouse. Three giant turrets dramatize 43 Old Farm Road; 55 Birch Lane features an all-stone exterior with stylized windows.
Few pass Matarrese's muster. At 716 Gardners Ave., a 1947-48 Cape Cod remains pretty much unchanged. ``We'd have taken that,'' she says.
When the landmark commission selected the Weber house, its aluminum siding upset the historical society. ``Why couldn't they wait?'' Matarrese says.
Explains Van Wie: ``Every year, we lose more.''
Maybe the inability to find an exact archetype reveals Levittown's very purpose - give people a foundation and let them build something unique.
``Home improvement is an expression of confidence in the community,'' says Jackson, the suburban scholar. ``When you see Levittown's transformation, it's a statement - an individual act, but a statement of confidence in the community.''
``If Levittown had not transformed,'' he says, ``it probably would not be successful today.''
Levitt died in 1994, revered by many citizens, thrilled at his community's coming of age.
``It's unrecognizable,'' he said in 1974. ``It's so beautiful. It's a collection of very distinctly individualistic homes with a great many people who are very proud.''
William Levitt's greatest success, it would seem, is not that his creation endured but that it evolved. That, given the time to mature, it prospered.
And that makes the historical society's search, however admirable, a difficult one emblematic of an era where change can be a community's very defining fabric.
``Why is finding this house important? Hopefully we can learn something from it,'' Lynn Matarrese says. ``I don't know if I know just what yet.
``Something important happened here - happened in these houses - that changed a lot of lives. What more reason does anybody need?''
LENGTH: Long : 280 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Maureen Hare stands in front of her home,by CNBformerly a Levitt ranch home and now a modern Victorian. 2. Charles
and Kathleen Weber's home (right) in Levittown, N,Y., is one of the
few homes in the community that still ressembles the original Levitt
cape model. Members of the Levittown Historical Society (above)
gather to discuss their quest for an original Levitt house to turn
into a museum. color. 3. Aerial photo (left) shows a portion of
Levittown, N.Y., in 1948. 4. New residents (above) flocked to
America's first mass-produced suburb in the late '40s.