Welcome to Willingboro. You won’t find many basements here.
It’s a feature of Levitt-built houses in the township that may cause people unfamiliar with the place to raise eyebrows. Let us explain.
Why doesn’t Willingboro have basements?
You have to return to post-World War II America which had millions of young people not only returning from the war, but eager to settle down and start families.
Bill Levitt, who spent the war as a Navy Seabee, or a member of a construction battalion, in Hawaii, heard it over and over when he asked what the men wanted to do after the war: “I don’t care, I just want to live someplace green.”
Which meant some place bucolic, away from cities. He knew his family’s homebuilding business would boom, and offered this advice to fellow vets: “Boys, when you get back home, build your heads off.”
To accommodate demand, houses would have to be built quickly, and cutting out the basement not only saved time but, with other construction innovations, allowed Levitt and Sons Inc. to sell houses to those with blue-collar jobs and middle-class incomes. The homes were built on concrete slabs.
Beginning on Long Island, New York in 1947, then moving to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1951, then Willingboro, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the frequently overlooked Levittown in Prince George’s County, Maryland (called “Belair at Bowie”), tens of thousands of homes were built without basements. This allowed Levitt to build quickly.
And did you know Willingboro was orignally called Levittown? The name switch came in 1963 in honor of William Levitt.
In the beginning ‘First families’ of Levittown
Was lack of basements in Levitt-built houses controversial among homebuyers?
Nope. In Long Island, Newsday, the local newspaper, took issue with critics who mocked Levittown’s lack of basements, editorializing, “Maybe (a basement) was good enough for grandpappy to live in a baroque chateau, propped up over a hole in the ground, but it is not good enough for us.”
Do any houses in Willingboro have basements?
A good question with a qualified answer of maybe.
There are non-Levitt houses bearing Willingboro addresses that have basements, but those weren’t built by Levitt and Sons Inc.
However, the Newport model may technically qualify since it is a bi-level (some call it “split level”) with stairs leading up and stairs leading down. Do the lower stairs lead to a basement? If you want to call it that, but not really.
The bi-level was popular in the late 1950s and early to mid-1960s, but not in Willingboro, where only about 15 were built, according to a realtor who does business in Burlington County.
It’s possible that some Levitt-built houses were retrofitted with basements by ambitious homeowners, though how many isn’t really cataloged publicly.
As Willingboro was built during the Cold War when backyard bomb shelters were popular, some might call the in-ground shelter a “basement.” In Levittown, Bucks County, some real estate listings will mark a bomb shelter as a “partial basement.”
Are basements a popular amenity with homebuyers today?
Not really. The Levitts were ahead of their time.
According to a 2021 survey by the National Association of Homebuilders, 67 percent of new homes in the U.S. are built on slabs, showing how influential the Levitts were with home-design innovations. The same survey shows just one in five new homes has a basement.
JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Leivtt-built houses in Willingboro have no basements. Here’s why
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