A FAMILY of lottery winners is planning to build a £5million Hollywood-style mansion with breathtaking views of Edinburgh Castle.
Lisa Charters and her husband Craig, both 33, are settling down in Scotland’s capital after travelling the world, funded by a £33million Lotto jackpot won by her parents six years ago.
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Lisa’s parents David and Carol Martin won half of a record-breaking £66million UK National Lottery jackpot in 2016.
The pair from the Hawick in Roxburghshire – who announced their engagement on a beach in the Bahamas – last year snapped up a modest three-bed bungalow in Edinburgh by paying £200,000 over the asking price of £670,000.
Now they hope to demolish the 1950s single-storey home and replace it with an architect-designed modernist mansion to make what their planning agents describe as “a significant statement”.
Blueprints just made public reveal the kind of glittering zinc, bricks and glass vision which normally appears on TV’s Grand Designs, the Channel 4 show hosted by Kevin McCloud which follows the progress of marvellous mansions from concept to reality.
The current footprint of the humble bungalow is 160 square metres. The plan increases that to 554 square metres.
Drawings show a house that makes no apology for capitalising on its stunning views of Edinburgh Castle, with acres of glazing looking out onto Auld Reekie in all its glory.
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One property developer who has built homes for millionaires said: “It is quite a spectacular home but the first thing that strikes you about it is the sheer scale of the place.
“Edinburgh’s planners are a conservative bunch, so a plan which seems to gobble up its garden may struggle to win planning permission.
“There also appears to be a fairly dramatic driveway which curves up to the property, something you would expect to see in the Hollywood Hills. This has the potential to be a £5million house.”
Plans for Lisa’s new five-bedroom dream home in Edinburgh show a zinc exterior and masses of balcony space.
The main living accommodation sits on the upper floor, with a dining/kitchen area connected by stairs to a large living space, with windows on each side.
It seems as if all of the bedrooms come with glass-fronted balconies as well. Using gravity, James Bond-style chutes will whizz the family’s rubbish down to the bins for collection.
The dramatic driveway rises up through the garden and actually cuts through the ground floor of the property.
The couple are directors of their own property firm, Charters Properties Ltd, set up in 2019. Its nature of business at Companies House is given as ‘other letting and operating of own or leased real estate’. In August last year, Lisa changed her occupation on the firm’s records to ‘house-wife’.
City of Edinburgh Council confirmed it received an official planning application last month.
The couple were not available for comment.
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