[quote]How a Townhouse in N.Y. Went From Dream to Nightmare

http://tinyurl.com/pm3y6

By CARA BUCKLEY

The graceful town house on East 62nd Street was more than a home to Nicholas Bartha. It was the culmination of his life’s work, proof that he had realized the classic immigrant’s dream.

Dr. Bartha, burned and barely conscious, was pulled from the ruins yesterday morning after the house was nearly leveled by a gas explosion, raining bricks on one of the city’s wealthiest streets and sending up thick columns of black smoke. Even before the fires were extinguished, police began focusing on Dr. Bartha as the most likely person to have caused the blast.

Just as his historic town house, a landmark used more than half a century ago by American spies, was no ordinary building, Dr. Bartha, 66, was embroiled in a marital split that by all accounts was no ordinary divorce. But he would have done anything to keep that house, including stay married, his lawyer said.

He lost one key battle last year when a court ruled that his wife deserved a share of the building, a decision he fought.

Then, in April, he was ordered to sell it so he could pay his wife more than $4 million. In court papers, she said he had repeatedly vowed in ominous tones that he would die in that house and that she would never get it.

Now there is no house.

“He wanted to stay married,â€

^ That sucks. I lived on longisland NY, most of my life. Lots of things going down.