How Did That Work Out For You?

Are we to assume this means that by destroying the house in order to keep it from his ex-wife, she will perhaps earn even more from the land? How’s that for irony:

The gas blast that leveled Dr. Nicholas Bartha’s landmarked Upper East Side townhouse didn’t lower the property’s value — and may even have increased it, real-estate experts told The Post.

“The value is not in the building, but the land on which it sits — especially in that area,” said Corcoran Group CEO Pamela Liebman.

Another broker, who asked not to be named, said the site, minus the four-story brownstone “is a developer’s dream” because there’s no need to pay for demolition or to go through the costly and time-consuming process of evicting tenants.

He added that it also could be more desirable because a developer wouldn’t have as many landmark issues to contend with — although the new building’s façade would have to be a reasonable facsimile of the original.

Another real-estate source, who has visited the house that Bartha allegedly destroyed rather than give up, said that beyond the exterior, the 96-year-old, 4,931-square-foot house at 34 E. 62nd St. “wasn’t all that terrific.”

“Someone would have bought the place and gutted it,” he said.

So how much is the property worth?

Most experts put the value, with or without the intact four-story brownstone, at between $7 million and $9 million.

The average price of a townhouse on the Upper East Side is $7 million, real-estate experts said. But because Bartha’s lot is slightly wider — 20 feet, rather than 18 feet — it could bring more.

. . . [W]ith a new 8,000-square-foot house built on the site, it could sell for about $15 million, real-estate agent Toni Simon of Halstead Properties told Bloomberg News.