HASTA LA VISTA: Hana Bisceglie is pining for the New York skyline view she had before Dr. Mehmet Oz had three gigantic trees planted at his Cliffside Park, NJ, mansion.
Dr. Mehmet Oz.
HASTA LA VISTA: Hana Bisceglie is pining for the New York skyline view she had before Dr. Mehmet Oz had three gigantic trees planted at his Cliffside Park, NJ, mansion. (robert kalfus)
Good fences make good neighbors — but big trees are a deal-breaker.
The next-door neighbor of celebrity heart surgeon Mehmet Oz is suing the affable TV talk-show doc for planting three 46-foot cedars that ruin the lawyer’s stunning view of Manhattan.
“It’s ego, arrogance and spite,” Angelo Bisceglie complained of Oz’s backyard tree-planting at his Cliffside Park, NJ, McMansion. “I feel betrayed.”
Oz moved onto the leafy street of multimillion-dollar homes two years ago and immediately installed bamboo trees to shield a newly built pool and cabana.
But when Bisceglie complained the bamboo was whipping against his home in the wind, Oz replaced them with the cedars.
“They did not just block our view — they knocked down the value of our house,” complained the lawyer’s makeup-artist wife, Hana.
Oz’s wife, Lisa, said the trees would keep paparazzi from intruding, Angelo Bisceglie said.
“What a joke,” he said.
Bisceglie said the couples enjoyed friendly relations before the tree-planting.
“I opened my heart to Dr. Oz,” he said. “I’m very angry.”
Hana Bisceglie said things turned ugly after the couples met to discuss some neighborhood issues over tea.
“They were over at the house and they were very friendly,” she said. But the next day a developer warned her husband, ‘Angelo, you’re going to lose your view.’ It was very surprising.”
Hana said she now mourns the view that made her fall in love with her home.
“She wanted the windows to New York and the door to New Jersey,” Hana told their realtor. “I walked out and I saw the Empire State Building, and I said, ‘I want this house.’ And now we don’t have it.”
The lawsuit also names the borough of Cliffside Park and zoning officials as plaintiffs, saying they failed to enforce zoning ordinances — including one that limits fences to 4 feet.
Oz lawyer Stanley Turitz did not immediately return a call for comment.