In two new superior court lawsuits alleging illegal tree cutting — one in Chilmark another on Chappaquiddick — land owners are accusing their neighbors of destroying old-growth trees for the sake of creating water views.

In Chilmark, Martha Cottle has filed a complaint in Dukes County superior court claiming that Beach Plum Inn owners Sarah and Robert Nixon unlawfully cleared a large swath of trees on her property at 6 DH’s Hill Road in Menemsha. The Nixons are principals in Swordfish Enterprises Inc., and are abutters to Ms. Cottle. Erik Taylor, a business associate of the Nixons who did the tree work, according to the complaint, is also named as a defendant.

The alleged illegal clearing took place in December 2019 on a half acre of the Cottle property, according to the complaint, which described “unauthorized environmental destruction . . . [that] wreaked havoc akin to a war zone,” by chopping down approximately 136 trees, including beech, oak and locust, some 100 feet in height. The complaint also claims that the cutting was done to enhance “their water view of Menemsha harbor, Menemsha Pond and Menemsha Bight.”

Filed Feb. 22, the complaint cites an estimate of $3.6 million to restore the damage, and seeks a jury trial.

In an unrelated case, on March 2 a trust controlled by the Stephens family of Chappaquiddick filed a lawsuit against Deeluxe Holdings and Harold Flack for alleged illegal clearing on an undeveloped piece of land at 5 Maqua Way. The property fronts on Katama Bay and has been held by the Stephens family since the 1960s, according to the complaint.

According to the complaint, Deeluxe Holdings and Mr. Flack acquired a neighboring property from the Elizabeth and Carl Gilmore Trust in 2015. The complaint alleges that in March 2019 the defendant or an agent trespassed on the Stephens property and “cut down/removed 86 of the largest, tallest, mature pines, oaks and sassafras trees and further crushed most of the ground cover . . . on two acres of the trust property . . . All the trees but for 11 white pines were older than 74 years.”

The complaint further alleges that “the defendants . . . have been unjustly enriched with water view of Katama Bay at the expense of the Trust’s privacy, shading, aesthetics and biggest, most mature trees”

A jury trial is requested, with damages to be determined.

Defendants in both cases have not yet filed answers to the court complaints.