Since 1905, the company has maintained one of the most extensive real estate portfolios in the United States, having created tens of thousands of apartments in hundreds of buildings, millions of square feet of commercial and office space, and billions of dollars in property values.

Prior to establishing the Lefrak Organization in America in 1905, the LeFrak family had been builders in Europe for two generations. A great-grandfather, Maurice LeFrak, was a developer in France in the 1840s. Toward the turn of the century, Maurice’s son, Aaron, and grandson, Harry, came to New York City and began a modest building company, mainly developing apartments for immigrants on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Harry LeFrak also designed and manufactured customized glass for Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Lefrak Tower, the first modern office uilding in Queens, is the focal point of a five building mid-city office complex.

Never a company to stand on precedent, the Lefrak Organization also broke with tradition in the construction of the Park Vendome in Queens, the world’s first high-rise residential-retail-commercial-judicial office building complex, for which Frank Lloyd Wright worked as a consultant. Located near the geographic center of New York City, the Vendome’s success led to the creation of Lefrak Tower, the first modern office skyscraper in Queens, and the focal point for a new five-building mid-city office complex.

One of the company’s greatest triumphs was Lefrak City, a gargantuan complex of 18-story buildings with 5,000 apartments, sprawling across 40 acres of land adjacent to the bustling Long Island Expressway in Queens. "The land was owned by William Waldorf Astor," recalls Sam LeFrak. "At that time, it still had Quonset huts on it with hundreds of World War II veterans and their families living there. Before that, it was called Mary’s Dump, because they dumped fill there. I broke ground in June 1960. And from the start it was a huge success. All air-conditioned, at $40 per room. Imagine that in this day and age! "And," he says, "it was privately built and privately financed. No government subsidies. Because, I like to be my own advisor. I don’t like to work with bureaucrats and politicians."