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Extreme divorce: Home Edition

BY JULIA ALLISON | Special to amNewYork

July 17, 2006

Movie poster for 'War of the Roses'. (Photo by Handout / July 17, 2006)

There are bad divorces. And then there are really bad divorces.

Blowing up one's marital house pretty much falls into the latter category.

In a real-life War of the Roses, (former) Upper East Side resident Dr. Nicholas Bartha decided that "over my dead body" wasn't just an expression and rather than sell the four-story townhouse that he and his ex-wife had shared to pay her marital settlement, he would just, you know, blow it up.

The New York Times called it "no ordinary divorce," but "a nightmarish New York saga of vengeance worthy of a Lifetime channel movie."

But really, who has an "ordinary" divorce? What does that mean, anyway? That you didn't fight? That you're still friends? That you avoided committing suicide in your former house?

Or maybe, when they wrote "ordinary," they meant "good." In that case, as high profile divorce attorney Raoul Felder told me, "there's no such thing it's an oxymoron. There are only divorces that are relatively civilized."

"Someone you once loved is saying that you're not a worthwhile person," says Felder, who has represented Rudy Giuliani, one of Mick Jagger's myriad baby mommas, and P. Diddy's ex-wife. "It's not like you got a lemon of a car! This guy [Bartha] was obviously very troubled, but these emotions are in every divorce. He just carried it one step further."

Maybe it's just me, but I've found that the more you hear stories of real life, the more you start to think that Lifetime movies aren't so unrealistic after all.

In fact, shortly after the Bartha-blow-up, MILF extraordinaire Christie Brinkley filed for her (fourth) divorce, allegedly because her golden boy hubby Peter Cook was having an affair with his 19-year-old assistant, whom he met in a toy shop. (You can't make this stuff up.)

Given their co-ownership of at least five houses, they'd better start stocking up on explosives now.

Actually, that might be better than wading through New York's Byzantine divorce laws and stubborn, baffling refusal to adopt a no-fault system. Under the current procedures, "divorce court is the last place you want to be," says Felder.

"The law is not the place for emotional grievances or reparations," he adds. "If you're looking for reparations, go to the UN."

That's pretty much what The Boyfriend concluded when he went through his divorce. Eschewing protracted negotiations over their joint assets, including an apartment in the city and one painstakingly restored Hamptons house, he had a single 30-minute meeting and gave everything to her. The polar opposite of Bartha, his former house is not only still standing ("too beautiful to blow up"), but it's currently on the cover of Elle Décor - credited to his ex-wife, of course.

"Divorce is already painful," he explained, "why make it more painful? I'd rather she have the money than the lawyers. Possessions can be replaced."

Thank god Ron Perlman doesn't think like that. Half of the city's law firms would be out of work!

Having never been married, Julia has found it exceedingly difficult to get divorced (except in Nevada). Email Julia@JuliaAllison.com