Page 70 - People (February 2020)

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It’s been two decades since Dr. Mehmet Oz and his
wife, Lisa, began their search for that perfect home
in which to raise their growing family. “We kept on
finding houses that weren’t right for us,” says the
host of The Dr. Oz Show, 59. “We realized we needed
a place where we could build what we wanted.” Their
ideal plot ended up being on top of the Palisades,
a hilly area in Cliffside Park, N.J., overlooking the
Manhattan skyline. “Mehmet’s family in Istanbul
likes to look at the Bosphorus Sea, so when we moved

to this area, he wanted to look at the Hud-
son River,” says Lisa, 56. In the morning
O-Mazing
light, “it’s very calming,” adds Mehmet, who Memento
commutes to the city at 6:30 a.m. either to The couple picked
film his show or to treat patients at NY up the elephant
statue (on the
Pres byterian-Columbia Medical Center.
table) on a trip to
The only stumbling block was an exist- South Africa with
ing house on the site that had been deemed Oprah Winfrey.
unsafe. “You literally couldn’t even walk
on the property,” Mehmet recalls. “But I got an
aerial photo of the land, and I just knew it was what
we needed. We bought it that day.”
Design and construction for the six-bedroom,
eight-bathroom mansion with 12-ft.-high ceil-
ings and Mediterranean-inspired architecture,
all orchestrated by Lisa, took two years. It has
seen their four kids—Daphne, 34, Arabella, 29,
Zoe, 25, and Oliver, 20—come and go. Recently
they welcomed back Daphne, who will cohost

The Good Dish (a cooking show spin-off of her
dad’s series, launching this fall), and her husband,
John, to the pool house as they search for a new
place with their own four children.
Wild Side
“It’s Jersey—
I gotta have
Precious Moments animal print!” says
Nearly every surface is Lisa of the rug
covered in framed pictures under the grand
of the couple’s Turkish- piano, a family
American family. “They heirloom on which
remind you of those their four kids
brilliant times,” says learned to play.
Mehmet.

74 February 17, 2020 (RUG) WAYFAIR; (FRAME) POTTERY BARN; (PLANT) WEST ELM