A Lesson from Levitt

Postwar prosperity has enabled Western Europe to catch up with the U.S. standard of living in such basic human needs as food and clothing. When it comes to housing, though, most of the Continent still lags decades behind. New

European housing often looks elegant from the outside, but much of it is backward in kitchen equipment, bathroom layout, floor plans, heating, plumbing and lighting--the innards that make the shell truly livable.

The gap yawns nowhere wider than in France, where 51 years of rent control have helped create a gargantuan housing shortage. Thus it is not surprising that the French have enthusiastically greeted an invasion by Long Island's William J. Levitt, the U.S.'s biggest homebuilder (fiscal 1965 sales: $60 million). More than 60,000 Frenchmen have poured out of Paris to gape at Levitt's recently opened American-style subdivision in suburban Le Mesnil-Saint-Denis (pop. 2,000).

Gallic Rarities. Lured by neat three-to five-bedroom models priced from $22,000 to $33,700 on generous-size 6,458 sq.ft. lots, 1,111 French families by last week had put down $100 deposits for the 510 homes planned for the site. No wonder. Though Levitt's tile-roofed masonry houses cost about 25% more than they would in the U.S., their prices run about 25% below those of other homes for sale around Paris. They also come equipped with such Gallic rarities as closets, kitchen ranges and refrigerators. "My only problem," says Levitt, "is producing enough of them."

In France as in most of Europe, cranes and precast concrete wall sections enable increasing numbers of tall apartment buildings to be built swiftly. But single homes have resisted the industrial techniques that are commonplace in the U.S. Contractors get in one another's way, run out of materials, even quit to work on a second project before they finish the first one. Workmen, though skilled, handcraft things the way their grandfathers did. The result: low output at high cost. Levitt, who will use 99% French-made materials and equipment, is gambling that he can teach his French contractors and workmen to build Levitt-style, feels that eventually housing can be built in France for the same price as in the U.S.--or even for less.

Spreading Out. So desperate is France's need for more housing that even Levitt's French competitors cheer his venture--the first such in Europe by a U.S. builder. "He's helping to fill the need," says Builder Jacques Boulais, "and he's giving French contractors a good lesson in the modern way to build a house." Levitt has already lined up land for a second project near Paris next year. After that he plans to spread out to Marseille, other French cities and northern Italy. In ten years, he predicts, his company will be producing as much housing abroad as in the U.S.

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