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Weekly
Media Feature - (12/17/2000) |
Charlotte's
New Home
From: Total
Wales, South Wales Echo
IT’S
EVERY teenage girl’s dream - and when you happen to be Charlotte
Church, then it’s a dream that has little problem becoming a
reality. The teenage
soprano has been given her own penthouse at the age of just 14.
Her parents
have bought a new £500,000 house and they will live in the bottom
two floors of the custom-built seven-bedroomed property.
But Charlotte
will have the run of the 70ft long top floor to herself. The red-brick
mansion home is a far cry from the humble terraced house where she
lived just three years ago. The family
lived in a modest twobedroomed £50,000 house in Llandaff, Cardiff.
As her fame
spread Charlotte, her mother Maria and sepdad James left the
mid-terraced house to move into a four-bedroomed £140,000 semi
nearby.
Now the family
have moved for the third time in three years, into the mansion in
North Cardiff three miles away. Charlotte
helped design the property and choose colour schemes before moving
in last month. As well as
seven bedrooms, there are five bathrooms and Charlotte has her own
dressing room. She and her
family are guarding their privacy with wrought iron gates at the
entrance and closed-circuit TV cameras in the driveway. Anyone wanting
to see the family has to speak to them first by intercom linking the
front gates to the house.
In the driveway
stands Mr Church’s £25,000 top-of-the-range Ford Explorer. Parked
next to it is Mrs Church’s £15,000 Ford Focus in citrus gold -
both cars gifts from Ford who hired Charlotte for a major
advertising campaign. The half-acre
rear garden will soon be dominated by a swimming pool which is under
construction together with a jacuzzi and sauna room.
Inside is a
vast kitchen while pride of place in the huge lounge is a piano
where Charlotte practises her singing. r Church, a
former security firm manager, is having an office conversion.
The house is
only one of five individually designed homes on the exclusive
development near the M4 motorway.
Despite her
meteoric rise Charlotte still keeps her feet firmly on the ground
with the clean cut image of the “girl next door”. She has been
friendly with the builders still working on the house and thinks
nothing of making them cups of tea. It is a huge
step up in the world for both Charlotte and her parents - just three
years ago Maria Church was a local government housing officer.
Now she helps
handle the multi-million industry which is her daughter, helped by
executives of her record company Sony. It was her
determination to be in total control of her daughter’s interest
which led to the acrimonious parting with Charlotte’s manager.
Mrs Church is
now officially a trustee of Charlotte Church Ltd set up to look
after her daughter’s interests and massive fortune until she is
21.
Charlotte still
attends Howells Girls School in Cardiff and whenever she is away a
tutor travels with her to ensure she keeps up with her academic
studies. One of
Charlotte’s new neighbours said, “We’re delighted that she has
moved here and I’m sure it will be a happy home for her.”
“All the
people around here are big fans of Charlotte and it is great to see
her doing so well. “She is not
stuck up at all and seems to have a smile and wave for everybody.”
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