PHILADELPHIA — Mehmet Oz barely goes a day on the campaign trail without someone questioning his ties to Pennsylvania. And now his home in suburban Philadelphia — the Republican Senate candidate’s biggest defense against questions about his residency — is making national news.
A story from ABC News this week probed the unusual sale conditions around Oz’s family home near the upper-class Montgomery County enclave of Bryn Athyn, where his wife’s family has lived for generations. But there’s more to the story behind the manor than the strange terms of its acquisition.
In August, The Philadelphia Inquirer took a look at the celebrity doctor’s Pennsylvania estate and found a rare $50,000 tax break, evidence of stalled renovations and close ties to Oz’s family’s church.
Here are five things you need to know:
—About that unusual sale condition ...
Weeks after launching his Senate campaign in December 2021, Oz and his wife, Lisa Lemole, bought the eight-bedroom manor house from an arm of the General Church of the New Jerusalem, a Bryn Athyn-based church where Lemole’s family members are known as prominent parishioners.
As ABC noted, the couple purchased with an unusual buyback clause — one that gives the previous owner the right to purchase the property back at the original selling price, should Oz choose to offload the house in the future. Estate law experts told ABC this kind of clause is typically reserved for commercial, not residential properties, and its inclusion in the deed transfer gave some reason to suspect Oz might not be living there long.
—How Oz got a rare $50,000 tax break
The big eyebrow-raiser about the Oz estate in Lower Moreland Township is that it benefits from a rare tax incentive that chops $1,000,000 off its taxable value, dropping the annual tax bill by about $50,000.
As the Inquirer reported, the 34-acre parcel has been enrolled in the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s “Clean and Green” tax incentive for more than three decades. Part of a wider initiative known as Act 319, the program encourages property owners not to develop bucolic tracts of land like this by lowering their property tax assessment.
The controversial program, which does not have income restrictions, has been criticized as a tax loophole that overwhelmingly benefits wealthy landowners like Oz.
—Oz promised not to develop the property
Oz said that he “inherited” the tax break from the previous owners and that he intends to preserve the land. His campaign said both the buyback provision and the no-development clause were put in place by the church that sold him the estate.
“It’s a beautiful property, and (the church) didn’t want the property developed in any way that would harm (it),” his campaign spokesperson previously said.
—The curious case of the stalled renovations
In August, Oz said he had been staying at his in-laws’ home in Bryn Athyn while his new manor underwent renovations. When Inquirer reporters visited the property on two occasions over the summer, however, there were no obvious signs of construction activity. No construction permits had been filed in Lower Moreland, either.
And it appears he still has not moved in. At a campaign event last weekend, Oz reiterated that he is still living in the house where he got married — Lemole’s family home.
—Oz’s wife’s family has long ties to this religious suburban borough
Oz has called Bryn Athyn his adopted “hometown.” And while he acknowledged that he only moved there last year, Lemole’s family has been rooted in the well-to-do suburb for more than 100 years.
Bryn Athyn is a religious community built by members of the General Church of the New Jerusalem — or the New Church — a Swedenborgian denomination of Christianity.
More than 90% of Bryn Athyn residents are members of the church. But when it comes to the Oz campaign and the attention it’s brought to the suburban enclave, there’s a starker divide. The Inquirer interviewed more than a dozen current and former residents whose views of Oz ranged from gushing support to downright embarrassment.
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(Staff writer Julia Terruso contributed to this article.)
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